“Make Thee an Ark”: On the North American Cultural Laboratory, Theatre and National Identities

Abstract

To christen a theatre company the North American Cultural Laboratory (hereafter, NACL) is to locate it in a specific, albeit large, geographical space and, at the same time, to take an ambivalent stance toward national identity. NACL was founded in 1997 by Canadian Tannis Kowalchuk and American Brad Krumholz. The name neither aligns the company with one or the other nation nor simply ignores questions of national origin. Rather, by designating a geographical space that encompasses more than one sovereign state, the name “NACL” announces the organization’s ambition to reach across international borders.1 The name also indicates this New York—based laboratory’s links to such organizations as the late Jerzy Grotowski’s Teatr Laboratorium in Poland and Eugenio Barba’s Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium in Denmark. In respect of national identity, then, NACL has been shaped by three distinct forces, two emanating from the national origins of the founders and a third that is, in essence, supranational as a matter both of fact and principle. This essay examines the interplay of these forces as manifest in NACL’s history, artistic work and institutional life.