But, to the point - I think Mr. Benskin is saying that the fact that Quebecors feel that their identity is threatened by national absorption is in some way responsible for the popularity of their regional theatre. I don’t ever really see that being an issue for you and I (at least I hope to God that it never becomes an issue for us). I guess it’s a matter of identifying precisely who your community is that you market to, and make decisions on material for, and what it is that you all share on a very base level, before you can produce identity-building plays.

Fortunately, we can go ahead and produce revolutionizing plays in the meantime. That’s something.

there may be an issue of theatre as part of the activities of a specific culture here. i have no sources to back this up, but the following statistic was told to me in rehearsal yesterday:

the average franco-canadian sees 3 plays a year, the average anglo-canadian 0.3 plays a year. however, the numbers are virtually inverted when it comes to reading literature.

as a dominant art form in french canadian culture it makes perfect sense to use theatre as a vehicle to promote its identity… as anglos, we gotta major battle to fight in terms of making theatre a thing people do before it can do the same job.

This is really interesting to me, does art flourish when its community identity feels threatened? Can (should) theatre stand up and say “this is who we are, and we’re not moving”? The notion that Franco Canada declared its identity through its art is a compelling assertion for the value of theatre.

What would your “identity play” be about?