Can You See Me Yet? A Meditation on Canadian Theatre from a Coloured Girl

*This is an essay I was asked to write in 2016 about my personal experience in theatre

2016

I’m writing this on Canada Day as I travel to Shaw in Niagara-on-the-Lake to see Master Harold and the Boys, directed by Philip Akin, and Adventures of a Black Girl in her Search for God, a GBS story adapted by Lisa Codrington. This is the perfect weekend to reflect on the state of Canadian Theatre and how it has evolved. I will attempt to show its ephemeral nature by looking at it from my perspective as a London Ontario native who started consuming theatre in 1986.

1985-1989

I attended H.B. Beal, a technical school, where I was in the Television & Broadcasting program. CanCon (Canadian Content) was being forced down the throats of radio stations in that 30% of their content had to be Canadian. So, while we, the listening audience, would have preferred to listen to 12 hours of Bad Brains, The Cure, Bruce Springsteen, and The Pogues, the CRTC regulated that 3 of those hours had to be dedicated to Gowan, Kim Mitchell, Maestro Fresh Wes and Skinny Puppy, et al. And while it may have felt like being force fed vegetables I’m happy I got to know the music of Amanda Marshall, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Diamond, and Liberty Silver. Popeye was right: spinach is really good for you.

I became interested in theatre in high school and the curriculum could have used a CRTC-like nudge. My drama teacher taught theatre by making us study Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. She taught us about auditioning by performing an interpretive dance to ‘Running Up that Hill’ by Kate Bush. Is it any wonder that I was ignorant of Canadian Theatre in the 80’s?

Thank Heavens for Martha Henry who, as the Artistic Director of The Grand Theatre, programmed ‘A Warm Wind in China’ by Kent Stetson in her first season at the company.  A play about AIDS starring a beautiful 38 year old actor named Philip Akin, I was engaged completely. I had never seen a black man on stage before, nor had I been exposed to homosexual relationships portrayed so matter of fact; the scales fell from my eyes and I saw theatre as an honest portrayal of real life.

I was foolish. I bounded up to my theatre teacher and told him I couldn’t wait to audition for the next season of plays at our high school. “Don’t bother auditioning, Andrea,’ he said, ‘there are no black parts.’ Well, at least he said it out loud. Eventually my school produced The Crucible and guess which role I played? No, not Abigail, but nice try.

1991

It wasn’t until I went to the University of Toronto for theatre that I was exposed to Canadian Theatre in the form of Judith Thompson, George F Walker, Paul Thompson, Michelle Tremblay, Linda Griffiths, and James Reaney.  You will notice the lack of diversity but, at the time, I did not; I was used to my experiences being invisible.

Shortly after getting my degree D’janet Sears won four Doras and a Chalmers for ‘Harlem Duet’ in 1997. It had been almost 10 years since I’d seen a strong black character on stage and here there was more than one. Nigel Shawn Williams, Barbara Barnes Hopkins, Dawn Roach, Jeff Jones, and Alison Sealy-Smith gave me hope. A few years later we were gifted with ‘Riot’ by Andrew Moodie, which was also awarded a Chalmers. You cannot truly comprehend how important it is to see people who look like you on stage that reflect your experiences authentically.

2016

20 years later I am a playwright. My objective is to create roles for people of colour who are three dimensional, complex people. The Canadian Theatre landscape is very different now than it was 30 years ago when Halle berry was first runner up for Miss USA, Reagan was in power, Jordan scored 63 points against the Celtics, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off made its glorious debut. For our country’s theatre to change and evolve the people who held the keys to the castle had to step aside and let a new generation of diverse creators make decisions.

Today one can leave their home and see a play by David Yee, Anusree Roy, Wajdi Mouwad, Cliff Cardinal, Carmen Aguirre, Sunny Drake, Lisa Codrington, Gein Wong, Ins Choi, Tawiah M’Carthy, Waawaate Fobister, Marcus Youssef, Njo Kong Kie, Joseph Jomo Pierre, Marjorie Chan, Donna Michele St. Bernard, directed and designed by Nina Lee Aquino, Philip Akin, Tara Beagan, Ravi Jain, Nigel Shawn Williams, Mumbi Tindyebwa, Weyni Mengesha, Joanna Yu, Rachel Forbes, Camelia Koo, Arun Srinivasan, Itai Erdal, Kobena Aquaa-Harrison, Debashis Sinha, Romeo Candido, Anahita Dehbonehie, and Jung-Hye Kim.

To ask, ‘Where is Canadian Theatre?’ implies that it is an ever fix’d thing, rather than an amorphous, living entity subject to changeability. Canadian Theatre is us and we cannot be locked into one static identity because to be static is to be immobile. Right now Canadian theatre is Indigenous, Nigerian, West Indian, Tamil, Filipino, Trans, Gay, Chinese, Iranian, Scottish, Ukrainian, Hakka, Ghanaian, English and Syrian.

To quote the unstoppable Maestro Fresh Wes: This is a throw-down, a showdown, hell no, I can’t slow down. …. This aint a game, I’m on a mission.’

*Can You See Me Yet? – a play by Timothy Findley

photo credit: awol erizku

Cassidy Must Die - Part Six

...Parsley residents are on edge this morning after a momma swan and her babies were found butchered by a family going for their Sunday walk.  Located not too far from the Sweets River shore, the cygnets and the mute swan, affectionately called Chuckles, were apparently killed with a blunt instrument.  This is the third incident of animals being killed this year after two pigeons, and a pet yorkie were found skinned and displayed outside the Parsley Bee Newspaper—

Cassidy knocked the radio off the side-table in an attempt to shut the noise. She opened her eyes and the bedroom was dim. She could hear the clock ticking away the minutes as she rolled over onto something soft and immoveable; it was a shoe. She pulled it out from beneath the small of her back and sat up on one elbow. Looking around the room she realized she was in her old bedroom. How did she get here? She hadn’t been home in so long she barely remembered the layout. The bookshelves colour coded, stacked with biographies, travel guides and plenty of fictional tomes. Tucked between the larger books with various tchotchkes she’d collected since was a kid. There was an old doll that her father had given her when she was 10, dusty and staring blank-eyed, just above her head. It was one of the first black cabbage patch dolls and even had a dimple, like its owner. It came with its own name on the accompanying birth certificate but Cassidy renamed her Esmerelda in honour of a long dead, never met family relative, her paternal grandmother.

Her eyes became adjusted to the darkness of the room and traveled the length of the far wall which housed a closet, mirror and window which was protected by closed blinds. She felt like death. Her eyes wandered over to something dark on the floor that looked like a shirt or leggings. The harder she stared at it the less she was able to discern what it was from her bed. She sat up completely and realized she was still dressed in most of her clothing from the night before. The night before…hazy. She’d planned to stay an hour and then….She reached to the side table and flicked on the lamp to get a closer look at the resident on her floor. It was vomit. A lot of it. ‘Ohhhh!’ she groaned as she fell back on the bed. She remembered all the girls in high school who would drink too much, puke in the bushes, the back yard, the sewers and then, staggering home while pledging loudly to the sleeping town that they would never drink again. Yes, she thought, I will never touch another drop.

‘Liar Liar pants are on fire,’ she heard a voice say from the doorway. Cassidy looked up from her pity party and saw Judith holding two glasses of water. ‘My angel! My sweet sweet angel,’ she burbled as she took the glass and absorbed its contents like a sponge. Judith stood with one hip cocked, peering at her friend. ‘Welcome home! You are a hot mess and you’re talking about how you’re going to stop drinking? Please!’ Cassidy reached for the second glass. Judith pulled back. ‘How do you know I didn’t bring this for myself, drunkie?’ Bowie, Cassidy’s cat, hetrochromia eyes narrowed, slid into the room and sniffed the puke pool beside the bed. He recoiled from the stench as Judith flicked some water at him. ‘Begone demon, mommy’s not ready for you yet.’ The cat ran out of the room with a slow backwards look at his master, disappearing from view.

‘So, I guess you two aren’t besties yet, huh?’ Cassidy said drinking from the second glass of water.

‘Well, I didn’t kill him yet, did I? Somehow we managed to live together without injury. Besides, what kind of housewarming would that be if you came home to a dead cat?’ Judith sat on the bed gingerly. She threw a few things onto a side chair in the corner. Bowie ran back in, leapt onto the chair and settled on a cotton jumper. He eyed them both before cleaning himself.

‘He looks healthy. Better than me, I’m guessing. I don’t even remember getting home. I had the weirdest dream…’ Cassidy rubbed her neck and put her head between her knees. ‘You say that so much, it’s lost all meaning, Cass,’ Judith muttered while rubbing her back. She stared around the room with its alarm clock, wall clock and travel clock in various areas of the space. Tick tick tick. All analogue. For some inexplicable reason, her friend loves clocks and the house was full of them.

‘Is that your way of giving me permission to cull the timekeepers in this house?’

‘No,’ her voice muffled while hunched over, trying not to feel nauseated.

‘I think you need some grease in your system. Let’s go for breakfast. It’s on me. I can smell the sizzling meats already,’ Judith stood up and grabbed the glass from the floor.

‘I want sausages but the idea of them makes me feel sick,’ she raised her head, and looked at Judith.

‘That’s because you have puke in your hair. Hit the shower and I’ll meet you at our local in 30,’ she said, standing to leave. Cassidy craned her head slightly to peer at her best friend.

‘You look like a pretty grown-up, Judy-Boo, so put together with makeup and no vomit in your hair. How do you do it?’

‘It’s called responsibilities, Cassidy! Get up!’ Judith’s voice carried as she whisked down the stairs and out the front door.

Cassidy stood and looked in the mirror. There was sick on her chin. She opened the curtains to let in the light and moved closer to the mirror. Was that a bruise on her neck? A flash of a bearded man, then surly woman, popped into her head and evaporated. Well, at least she didn’t die in this dream. Was it a dream? She needed to eat something. As she spun around to leave her room for the shower she tripped over Bowie, who’d slipped in and was standing directly behind her. There was water dripping from his whiskers and his paws were wet. She tried to pick him up and he wriggled out of her grasp.

‘Fine! Fine…I guess I should be happy you’re not scratching my eyes out after leaving you for three years.’  The cat stared at her, tail moving very slowly.

‘I swear you understand me but that would make me a crazy cat lady and we don’t want to end up like mummy in the Institute, do we? What am I doing? I need to get out of here.’

She grabbed the closest things she could find on the floor (did she drunkenly unpack her suitcase last night?) and went to the shower. Bowie followed, perched on the toilet, and watched Cassidy wash away her past.

Cassidy Must Die - Part Four

‘ID please.’ The bartender behind the counter was a bored looking woman with stringy, chestnut hair streaked platinum. Her eyes looked tired and posture stooped slightly. Cassidy reached into her pocket and showed the woman her driver’s license. She squinted to look at the date. She needed glasses but was too vain to wear them. In the dim light of the bar she couldn’t see the date of birth so rather than own up to her farsightedness handed the wallet back to the pretty but very young looking black girl at the counter.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Guinness’

‘Nope. We got Heineken, Pabst, Coors, Blue and this new local stuff called Bitter Girl IPA.’

Cassidy looked past the woman at the liquor selection at the back of the bar. ‘2 shots of Kentucky Bourbon. Neat.’ She turned in her seat to the sound of music coming from a back room in the bar.

‘Is that Bel Biv Devoe, they’re playing?’ she asked the bartender.

‘Yea. It’s Throwback Thursday here and the DJ plays nothing but pop and hip-hop from the eighties and nineties. It’s pretty popular and it should get wild with the full moon tonight.’

‘You’re the second person to mention the full moon to me in the last half hour. I had no idea Parsley was so superstitious,’ she sipped and luxuriated in the smoky flavour.

‘Superstition has nothing to do with it. The moon’s a powerful thing. I wouldn’t joke about it.’

‘Alright alright,’ Cassidy said as she slipped off her stool to get closer to the music. She left a 20 percent tip and smiled at the woman who had a name tag that said Angel Flo on it. There is no way that’s her real name Cassidy thought as she walked into the darkened room lined with posters advertising Throwback Thursday, different framed black and white and colour pictures of famous angels and a giant pair of tacky feathered wings behind the DJ. He had his head down, spinning the vinyl and De La Soul’s ‘Buddy’ was playing mixed with En Vogues’ Never Gonna Get it.

There were lots of women in the room dancing. Some by themselves, others in circle groups and a couple chair dancing out of shyness about their coordination. A tall, lanky guy the colour of 12 year of scotch was moving languorously with his eyes closed and he was surrounded by a klatch of young women. He wasn’t paying attention to any of them but not ignoring them either. He swayed and the women around him seemed to move in concert with his swaying hips. Cassidy felt compelled to join the women gathered around the young man and put her scotch down on a two top near the DJ. The music morphed into a mashup of Sly & the Family Stone and A Tribe Called Quest and Cassidy spun into the mix.