Jenn Stephenson, ed. Solo Performance

Abstract

JENN STEPHENSON, ed. Solo Performance. Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English. Vol. 20. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2011. xxxvi + 206pp. The end of the collection Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English will make way for New Essays on Canadian Theatre. The titles announced already signal the prominence of a plural--even multicultural--vision of the theatrical phenomenon. Since this perspective was quite obvious in the Press's preceding collection and without yet having had the chance to define its contribution through several published volumes (as of this writing only the first, Asian-Canadian Theatre is out), it is difficult to predict how this new series will innovate in its approach. Perhaps the collections' composition will be modified. We know that in the past, Playwrights Canada Press tended to bring together texts published elsewhere on a given theme, accompanied by a small number of additional studies commissioned by the director of the publication when deemed necessary. Rather than speculate about the future, however, let's focus instead on Solo Performance, the penultimate title published in 2011 and edited by Jenn Stephenson. The choice of this Queen's University professor to supervise the work was hardly surprising given that her monograph Performing Autobiography in Canadian Drama is to be published shortly by the University of Toronto Press. Indeed, there is a very close link between the two books, with the biographical and autobiographical constituting, in both cases, a central focus of discussion. There is no room here to summarize all the articles in Solo Performance. Suffice it to say, however, that they extend over a long temporal continuum--1972 to 2011 specifically--and cover a vast geographic area, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, while examining stage practices for both mainstream and marginal audiences. To be sure, these articles demonstrate a more pronounced interest in the latter, since, as many authors emphasize, the oneperson show and autobiographical performance are often an inexpensive way to render art more accessible to those artists and audiences usually excluded from the conventional theatrical field. Stephenson's work, moreover, clearly highlights those excluded from mainstream theatre: more than half of the eighteen texts are devoted to them. This emphasis therefore gives the impression of a theatrical institution open to minorities, marginal elements, and certain highly diverse aesthetics. One senses implicitly that the situation isn't all roses by the number of times the authors insist on the position of resistance to authoritarian discourse, a resistance defended by the solo performances analyzed. Although the word WASP isn't spelled out, we have no doubt who governs this society as those marginalized by gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality speak in these one-person performances. The other striking characteristic of many of the studies is to show precisely how the solo performance is viewed as an act of survival by those who write about and interpret it. Renate Usmiani highlights this when she affirms that this genre [m]ost often, [...]is used to underline the isolation in which a character moves, and his/her state of alienation (9). This collection of texts is not merely theme-based, however. Some of the most thought-provoking articles focus on the theory and aesthetics of these one-person-shows. The contributions of Ann Wilson, Ric Knowles, and Jennifer Harvie, as well as those of Sherrill Grace and Katherine McLeod stand out. …