Theatre and Immigration: From the Multiculturalism Act to the Sites of Imagined Communities1

Abstract

In English Canada the 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act instigated the study of ethnic, multicultural, and intercultural theatre practices.2 In Quebec the 1977 Bill 101 or The Charter of the French Language, which established the fundamental language rights of the people of Quebec and so presented “the most prominent cite of struggle over Quebecois culture and nationhood,” framed similar scholarly and artistic questions (Knowles and Mündel XVI). Today, however, with the growing number of immigrants landing in English Canada and Quebec, urban theatre audiences have become “increasingly diverse” and immigrant artists’ performances “no longer need to appeal either to the traditional white middle-class audience of Canada’s so-called ‘main stages’ [. . .] nor to communities narrowly defined by culture or interest” (XVII). This special issue takes this statement further and focuses on the cultural, personal, and artistic output of immigrant theatre artists who have been working in Canadian theatre for several decades. It argues that representation of an immigrant/immigration on stage constitutes a self-referential move in Canadian theatre. The increased presence of immigrant theatre artists actively contributing to English Canadian and Quebec theatre today invites audiences to rethink such fundamental concepts as nationalism and multiculturalism. Moreover, as this issue demonstrates, immigrant artists’ theatrical aesthetics and concerns situate questions of immigration within the wider discourse and practices of theatre as it relates to globalization and mobile identities worldwide. Hence, the articles chosen for this issue aim to measure the artistic output of Canadian immigrant theatre using the theoretical lenses of postcolonial and intercultural performance theories, studies in linguistics and cultural semiotics, psychoanalysis, and cultural geography. They continue the discussion of intercultural theatre practices in Canada and Quebec, initiated by Theatre Research in Canada and Jeu;3 and reflect the ongoing debates on theatre and immigration in Canada that took place at the 2013 and 2014 annual meetings of Canadian Association for Theatre Research; and as proposed in my own work on theatre and exile (2012).