Toward a Reception of Canadian Plays in German-Speaking Theaters

Abstract

Not long ago, it would not have occurred to Europeans interested in theatre that there was a lively theatrical scene in Canada. The plays written in the wake of Canadian nationalism and regionalism in the late 1960s and 1970s were hardly of interest to European audiences. They were too specifically Canadian, dealing as they did with life on the prairies, with Western settlement, ice hockey, the Parti Quebecois , or the problems of people living in the faraway outports of Newfoundland. Since the early eighties, however, new topics and new approaches have altered the characteristic features of Canadian plays. Cultural differences have increasingly been thematized, and more and more playwrights are voicing their different experiences from marginalized positions. Experiments count more than ever before; there has been a remarkable influx of new voices, and innovative concepts are being developed by women playwrights.