George Ryga Research Articles

The Psychology of Politics: George Ryga's Captives of the Faceless Drummer

This article analyses the background to the 1971 controversy and the misinterpretations of Ryga's play caused by it. When a work can be seen as a study of political consciousness, not of specific events like the FLQ hostage incidents, the artist can become the protagonist in a real life scenario.

The Artist in Resistance

The subject of populist theatre is one that is rapidly gaining in interest not only in Canada but in many parts of the world. This past May in Thunder Bay, Ontario, populist theatre companies from across Canada came together to share productions and information. Workshops were also held involving populist theatre workers from Canada and countries in the Third World. The following talk by playwright George Ryga was given during those workshops and is published here for the first time.

A Letter To My Son

In the fall of 1978, Kam Lab was in residency in Sault Ste. Marie. We were rehearsing what was to become the Eastern Canada premiere of George Ryga’s Ploughmen of the Glacier. During the run of that production. two members of the company caught the telecast of George’s screenplay for The Newcomers series. an episode about Ukrainian immigrant s. Moved and excited by the program. we discussed the possibility ofthis story as a stage play. how strong and ‘right’ it seemed. Nothing further was said.

George Ryga: Beginnings of a Biography

One thing that we don’t have very much of in Canada is basic biographical information on most of our playwrights. In recent years, this situation has begun to change but one quickly sees just how far we still have to go when it is realized that virtually no extended biographical material at all has been published about one of Canada’s most important playwrights, George Ryga. Recently, Vancouver critic Peter Hay began work on a Ryga biography and he spent many hours with him discussing Ryga’s life and work. The following is excerpted primarily from the section dealing with Ryga’s early career. Full publication of the still-to-be-completed volume is not expected for at least another two years.

The Need For A Mythology

On February 28, 1977, playwright George Ryga was in Surrey, British Columbia to deliver the keynote address in that city’s Canadian Literature Day celebrations. The following — which appears in print for the first time — is the text of his remarks made that day.

Profiles in Canadian Drama: Robertson Davies, James Reaney, Gratien Gelinas

If the first three volumes of Gage’s Profiles in Canadian Drama series, edited by Sister Geraldine Anthony, on Robertson Davies, James Reaney and Gratien Gelinas, are indicative, this needed and much anticipated venture must rate as a major disappointment. Its aim is laudable: “From the complexity of social views expressed, there should gradually emerge a mosaic that, seen in its entirety, may surely be called Canada.” Hopefully succeeding volumes on George Ryga, John Herbert, Michel Tremblay and others will help overcome an inauspicious beginning and attain this goal.

Rider on a Galloping Horse

On June 4, 1976, George Ryga — as leader of a group of 24 Canadians — arrived in Peking for the start of a 19-day tour of China. In addition to Peking, the group visited Shihchiachuang, Linhsien County in Honanprovince, Anyang, Changsha, and Kwielin in the deep south of China, crossing the Shumchun Bridge into Hong Kong on June 22nd. Ryga recorded the following impressions of life and art in China for CTR. He is presently at work on a book-length treatment of his China experiences, also to be titled, Rider on a Galloping Horse.

Ryga and Theatre Network

Because his plays are often critical of society, and at times explicitly anti-capitalist, George Ryga has often been forced to depend on Canada’s semi-professional theatres — groups receiving little and often no funding — to inaugurate his plays. And while these groups, like poorly-trained guerrilla bands, lacking experience, money, and power, have made up for their deficiencies with enthusiasm, commitment, and self-sacrifice, there can be no question that Ryga’s reliance on them has taken its toll. During a workshop at a conference on theatre held recently in Edmonton, Ryga admitted that his plays have suffered because he has been forced to deal with novice actors and directors. He added that this was the price he had to pay because the more “bourgeois” theatres were often hesitant about his work.

Hungry Hills

As a playwright. George Ryga has been the subject of much critical debate, some justified, some not. But as a novelist. Ryga’s talents are indisputable and one can only look forward to his future work in this form with great enthusiasm. Without a doubt, Ryga’s two early novels — Ballad of a Stonepicker( 1966)and Hungry Hills (1963) — are minor masterpieces, works well worth the reading and. in terms of the general Ryga canon, well worth inclusion.

Inside/Outside

In 1972, a number of young Ontario actors were involved in taking a production of George Ryga’s The Ecstasy of Rita Joe to the Vanier Institute for Women in Brampton. We were part of that group and the experience stayed with us for many reasons. One was the honesty of response that we received. Honesty because prison audiences have not yet been socialized to the theatre and the prisoners, suspicious of do-gooders from the outside, speak their minds quite freely. This past summer, a number of us got together again and created a company whose sole activity was to go back to those prisons and correctional institutions and try to provide as honest a theatrical experience for them as we could. We called the company Inside/Outside and when the going seemed foggy — as it often did — we remembered the gut reaction to Ryga’s play and that kept us going.

The Case for New Plays

Both George Ryga, in his argument for a “Canadian Content” quota (CTR 1) and Fred Euringer’s reply (CTR 4) miss the point in their discussions of the production of Canadian plays: the crucial issue is not so much nationalism as originality. Contemporary experience, as well as the entire history of Western drama, demonstrate that any viable theatre is primarily concerned with the production of new plays. A quota system would be of little value if, for example, it merely led to another thousand token productions of Leaving Home. It is new, original plays that form the vital core in a healthy theatre — whether that theatre is commercial or subsidized, establishment or fringe.

An Introduction

Paracelsus, which appears here for the first time, represents a significant departure both for its author and for Canadian drama. George Ryga, in his previous six plays (including Indian, a one-acter) has made his reputation as a playwright more engage in contemporary issues of Canadian society than anybody else In our theatre. Certainly in English Canada. Even A Portrait of Angelica, as yet unpublished though placed in Mexico, is about a Canadian painfully confronted with the abundant poverty of the Third World.

Calgary

I am well aware of the reasons underlying what I take to be George Ryga’s support for a “Canadian Content” quota (CTR 1) and I think, if I read his reasons accurately, that I am in some sympathy with these reasons, if not with his suggested solution. We all know that figures can be fudged to make things seem as they are not. I personally don’t think that quotas are the answer — they seem to me to invite fudging; but if I am wrong and quotas are the answer, I become very interested in the question: “How do you tell a Canadian Content when you see one?” Is Michael Cook, for example, naturalized? If he isn’t yet but becomes so, will his subsequent plays be Canadian Content and his earlier ones not? Or will all of his works be beatified retroactively? (And please don’t respond by giving me the date of his naturalization because it’s not really germane; I mention it as an example of the futility of quantification).

At-Large

There are at least four areas of original theatrical and dramatic activity in Canada at the present moment worth looking at. Three of them are reasonably well-known — British Columbia (George Ryga, Beverly Simons, Herschel Hardin, Eric Nicol, Sharon Pollock); Ontario (James Reaney, David Freeman, David French, John Palmer, Carol Bolt, John Herbert); and Quebec (Michel Tremblay, Robert Gurik, Jean-Claude Germain and Marc Gelinas). But one area which has been virtually ignored and which is now proving to be of real interest is Newfoundland where writers such as Michael Cook, Al Pittman and Tom Cahill along with sympathetic directors such as Chris Brookes and Dudley Cox are developing a theatre which is at once rooted in the realpolitik of the Newfoundland social structure and yet which is also theatrically-rich enough to make its statements to audiences outside. That, in fact, is one of the problems at the present moment. Funds to make their statements are rather scarce in Newfoundland and there is a distinct danger that Newfoundland artists will be making their statements to audiences in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto instead of to the people to whom they’re addressed. But the awareness of that problem is obviously there and when the newly-organized Newfoundland Arts Council officially comes into being in the coming months some of this danger may be eased.

Book Reviews

John Fuegi, The Essential Brecht, reviewed by Helge Hultberg James Reaney, Listen To The Wind , reviewed by Michael Mason James Reaney, Colours In The Dark, reviewed by Michael Mason George Ryga, The Ecstasy Of Rita Joe, reviewed by Michael Mason George Ryga, Captives Of The Faceless Drummer, reviewed by Michael Mason Jackie Crossland and Rudy LaValle, Rinse Cycle, reviewed by Michael Mason Beverly Simons, Crabdance, reviewed by Michael Mason David Watmough, Ashes For Easter And Other Monodramas, reviewed by Michael Mason