In the Face of the Status Quo
by Ken Smedley

George Ryga, a founding father of Canadian literature, theatre and culture, was derived from the “other.” In fact, he converted the other – his experience growing up in a marginalized Ukrainian community in the Athabasca of northern Alberta – into the first Canadian literature to depict the realities of the rural immigrant community in Canada. These realities are embodied in his early novels, Hungry Hills and Ballad of a Stonepicker. The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Ryga’s most renowned work, brought the disaffected others of Canadian society into the mainstream consciousness, legitimizing professional Canadian theatre in the process. As a result, Ryga became a major spokesperson for the disenfranchised of the society, raising an aspect of social-humanitarian awareness that contributed to the evolving notions of Canadian identity. When people experienced The Ecstacy of Rita Joe, they were affected by the immediacy of theatre’s power, and the impact of this literally moved them to a place of humanness that had to be acted upon. It has been said that great writers are like another government, and Ryga and his work were a definite party in the opposition to the status quo.

What was it that gave Ryga such an insight into the plight of the others – the disadvantaged, disempowered and marginalized? Basically, his people had been sent to the cold, barren Athabasca, with a growing season of fifty days, because their skin was swartheir than that of other immigrants. In his own words, he lived closer to feudalism than the lights of Edmonton, 120 miles away. His closest counterparts in this condition were the native peoples.

He evolved from this margin to become a Canadian artist in the 1950s. As a male, this was to go way beyond, and to fly in the face of, the status quo. It was to defy all established expectations and traditions; it was akin to treason. The ultimate achievement of such a radical choice was to creatively transform into the significant other. In the process, Ryga realized the power of such a choice, and he had the intuitive sense to exercise the voice of that experience, infusing it with a tone and resonance that was undeniably real in its representation of those other perspectives on the landscape and, consequently, in its challenge to the entrenched value system. For a time, Ryga was regarded with an uneasy respect.

Grass and Wild Strawberries created another radical departure: it attracted young people to the theatre in unprecedented numbers. This was truly a volatile mix, and was highly disturbing to the status quo. Young people were beginning to form their own theatrical cadres across the country and, to some extent, emulate elements of this theatrical style, expressing themselves in radically new ways and dramatically demonstrating their discontentment and unrest. This theatre of socio-political issues and humanitarian concerns was a hot potato, putting a lot of people on the hot seat. Whole communities were alive with ideas, originality, creativity, heated debate – and even confrontation. The flip side of the cool, calm, collected colonialist culture had been inflamed. This theatre had the capacity to unleash a dangerous force. It was different from the usual imported fare, in that it didn’t attract the accustomed elite, but people from all walks of life. None of this went unnoticed.

Political Unrest Breeds Censorship
In the late spring of 1970, the Vancouver Playhouse commissioned Ryga to write a play about urban violence. In October of the same year, the FLQ Crisis in Quebec precipitated Pierre Trudeau’s implementation of the War Measures Act, and the entire country was placed under Marshal Law. This event became the subject matter for Ryga’s most compellingly political play, Captives of the Faceless Drummer. As a result, the CEOs on the Vancouver Playhouse’s Board of Directors imposed their own martial Martial Law against this play, censoring it out of the production season. Their replacement choice was an import, none other than Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. Because Ryga protested, his theatre was discredited and his voice was excised from the scene as effectively as various totalitarian regimes silenced the Havels, Mrozeks and Hays. So effective was the discreditation in the aftermath of the Captives controversy that Ryga did not receive a mainstage production on the government-funded regional theatre system, which Rita Joe legitimized, for 17 years.

In essence, Canadian theatre was effectively simonized into a format of television emulation, which has more in common with sitcom than with theatre, and Ryga’s theatre of ideas, issues and social-humanitarian concerns was polished off the stage. Ironically, what was done to the work was similar to what was done to Rita Joe; it was disenfranchised from the culture. Paradoxically, all the issues the work addressed continue to bite at our heels today, threatening to unravel what little fabric remains in the knit that holds us together.

Ultimately, what’s important to recollect is that Ryga’s theatre – his unique dramatic voice and style – came off a landscape that reflected the lives and issues of all Canadians. The politic and premise of his work is based in a credo he learned as a child: “I believe we are all brothers and sisters. If one of us hurts, no matter where in this world, we must all feel the pain.”

Keeping Ryga’s Torch Lit
It’s time to re-evaluate the theatre of Ryga, just as we’ve been re-evaluating our values vis-a-vis the forces of globalization and technology and their dehumanizing effect, which inevitably impacts our sense of identity. It’s imperative that we do so before we become any further detached from who we are, who we might have been, and who we might still be, in exchange for becoming further co-opted by the faceless drummers and relegated to the no-man’s land of the virtual insignificant other.

With home, a new generation of theatre practitioners will re-evaluate the power of the theatre as other government, and as another opposition party to the party with the power. Bearing in mind, heart and soul that the objective is not to attain power but to resist it and, in opposition, to hold an immediate mirror up to the nature of the beast, this new generation can make that beast accountable, thereby restoring some balance and functionality to an increasingly dysfunctional condition. This must be done regardless of the potential for embarrassing or offending the Emperor – without his clothes – and his public. In truth, what could be more entertaining?

There still is hope if a new generation takes back the theatre with the fire in its belly that was simonized away... takes back that “other” theatre that was never fully realized, and affects another revolution on the theatrical wheel.

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