Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
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Yana Meerzon
Yana Meerzon is an Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa. Her research interests are in drama and performance theory, theatre of exile and immigration; cultural and interdisciplinary studies. Her publications include A Path of the Character: Michael Chekhov’s Inspired Acting and Theatre Semiotics (2005); and Performing Exile – Performing Self: Drama, Theatre, Film (2012). She has co-edited several collections, and her most recent publication is a special edition of the journal Theatre Research in Canada (2015), with a focus on theatre and immigration in Canada. She is currently working on a collection of plays and articles on the same subject, and on a book entitled On Self and Encounter: Constructing Subjectivity in the Age of Cosmopolitanism.
Abstract
On October 22, 2015, two days after the Liberal Party of Canada came to power, The Globe and Mail published an editorial entitled “Canada to the World: Xenophobia Doesn’t Play Here.” The article suggested that, in these times of migration crises, a rising xenophobic discourse and neo-nationalism, it is essential for the European countries to start taking lessons in navigating cultural diversity from Canada, the first country in the world that institutionalized principles of multiculturalism. This view is clearly reflected in the repertoire politics of Canadian theatre institutions, specifically the National Arts Centre (NAC) Ottawa, the only theatre company in Canada directly subsidized by its government. Mandated to support artistic excellence through arts, the NAC acts as a pulpit of official ideology. It presents diversity on stage as the leading Canadian value, and thus fulfills its symbolic function to serve as a mirror to its nation.However, this paper argues that, by offering an image of Canada, constructed by our government and tourist agencies, as an idyllic place to negotiate our similarities and differences, the NAC fosters what Loren Kruger calls a theatrical nationhood (4–16). A closer look at the 2014 NAC English theatre co-production of Kim’s Convenience will help illustrate how the politics of mimicry can become a leading device in the aesthetics of national mimesis – a cultural activity of “representing the nation as well as the result of it (an image of the nation)” (Hurley 24); and how the artistry of a multicultural kitchen-sink can turn a subject of diversity into that of affirmation and sentimentalism.
About the author
Yana Meerzon is an Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa. Her research interests are in drama and performance theory, theatre of exile and immigration; cultural and interdisciplinary studies. Her publications include A Path of the Character: Michael Chekhov’s Inspired Acting and Theatre Semiotics (2005); and Performing Exile – Performing Self: Drama, Theatre, Film (2012). She has co-edited several collections, and her most recent publication is a special edition of the journal Theatre Research in Canada (2015), with a focus on theatre and immigration in Canada. She is currently working on a collection of plays and articles on the same subject, and on a book entitled On Self and Encounter: Constructing Subjectivity in the Age of Cosmopolitanism.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
