{"id":351,"date":"2020-05-06T13:54:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T13:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/?p=351"},"modified":"2022-02-05T13:05:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T13:05:15","slug":"bugged-critics-criticism-and-critical-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/bugged-critics-criticism-and-critical-categories\/","title":{"rendered":"Bugged (Critics, Criticism and Critical Categories)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Don Rubin<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two decades ago, the German scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann theorized what he called \u201cPost-dramatic Theatre,\u201d and today the term describing what is essentially non-text-based theatre is ubiquitous. But what about something that he mentioned only in passing: \u201cPre-dramatic Theatre\u201d? Has anyone really theorized that notion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Toronto, during the distant past\u2014February and March 2020, a time just before the theatre world began collapsing because of the COVID 19 pandemic\u2014this issue blew up on the theatre pages of the city\u2019s major newspapers. The resulting conversation even reached Europe, when the distinguished Guardian <\/em>newspaper in the U.K. decided to add in its own tuppence. All this for an issue of critical theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all started innocently enough back in the summer of 2018, when a highly-funded arts festival in Toronto called Luminato\u2014an interdisciplinary festival with an avant-garde bias\u2014funded a short run of something called bug<\/em> (yup, all lower-case). Written by a First Nations woman named Yolanda Bonnell, bug<\/em> was noticed by many in the theatre community and later won a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination <\/em>for \u201coutstanding new play.\u201d It did not win the Dora, but the nomination was certainly enough to attract the attention of many, including Asian-Canadian Marjorie Chan, a director, actor, writer, librettist and recently-named Artistic Director of one of the city\u2019s major alternative companies, the venerable Theatre Passe Muraille.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan apparently had no problem with the fact that Bonnell was not calling bug <\/em>a play but rather an \u201cartistic ceremony.\u201d Now nothing wrong with ceremonies and rituals, of course, which clearly link back to the very roots of theatre, theatre\u2019s pre-dramatic elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Playwright, poet and actress Yolanda Bonnell. Photo: from her webpage<\/a>. Accessed May 4, 2020<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Scholars of such things tell us that most such ceremonies take place in the hope of making something positive happen in the future\u2014good crops, rain, a successful hunt. It is only when elements of those ceremonies and rituals begin to move from future to past, from before an event has taken place to after, from a hope to a recounting of things that have already taken place, that we begin to see the essential distinction between ceremony and drama, religious ritual and theatrical art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a simplistic description to be sure of a complicated subject, but there is enough basic truth to the proposition that one really can see the historical link between what we can call pre-drama, drama and Lehmann\u2019s notion of the post-dramatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue that emerged in Toronto for theatre reviewers, however, was not theoretical but practical: should they be reviewing rituals and ceremonies at all? Theatrical these things may be but so too are many sacred ceremonies. Bonnell and Chan set off the controversy when they decided NOT to invite in the usual range of first night and first week critics but, rather, only writers and reviewers who came from what they felt were communities that would understand her work on the ceremonial level. That is, only reviewers who were indigenous, black and\/or of colour. Only they would be offered press seats for the opening. \u201cSettler\u201d reviewers (read white or, as one First Nations writer called them tongue-in-cheek, people of \u201cpallor\u201d), while not excluded per se, would have to buy tickets if they wanted to attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of coverage extended widely in discussions. Some took it to hyperbolic extremes: should only people of colour be invited to write about plays by writers of colour? Should only whites be invited to write about plays by whites? Should only women be invited to write about plays by women? Men to plays by men? Muslims to plays by Muslims? Christians to plays by Christians? Jews to plays by Jews? How about only young people to plays about the young; old to plays about age? You get the idea. This tendency to be constantly filtering their points of view through the lens of identity politics can put you in the weeds pretty quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two white critics for Toronto\u2019s largest circulation print papers\u2014the Globe and Mail<\/em> and the Toronto Star\u2014<\/em>were chuffed enough to air their feelings. The Globe<\/em> critic, Kelly Nestruck, called it \u201ca basic principle of mainstream cultural journalism that artists should not pick which critics review them. But,\u201d he asked, \u201cshould artists be allowed to choose which colour of critic reviews them?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karen Fricker, writing in the Star, <\/em>said that the policy \u201ccertainly runs against the dominant conventions of cultural criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonnell argued that \u201cthere is a specific lens that white settlers view cultural work through and, at this time, we\u2019re just not interested in bolstering that view.\u201d She added that what she wanted to see \u201cwas the thoughts and views of fellow marginalized voices and, in particular, Indigenous women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an extended interview in the Globe <\/em>with Nestruck, she explained where her concern stemmed from. \u201cThere was a very problematic review for Luminato\u2019s version of bug.\u201d S<\/em>he noted also that it was not the first time she had been reviewed with \u201cproblematic, culturally specific comments\u201d; comments insultingly suggesting that her work stay on \u201cthe reservation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nestruck offered a mea culpa<\/em> to her saying that he could not \u201cdeny that my \u2018white settler lens\u2019 shapes how I experience theatre. . . . And, of course, that lens can also distort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passe Muraille\u2019s director Marjorie Chan said that she had told Nestruck he could attend. He just had to buy a ticket. He was simply not being invited<\/em>. \u201cNobody\u2019s banned. . . . There aren\u2019t headshots of critics at the box office,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the ongoing debate that followed, one \u201cwhite\u201d on-line reviewer announced that she will no longer be reviewing Passe Muraille\u2019s shows. No doubt the theatre was crushed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Nestruck\u2014who regularly shares with his readers how politically correct his views on everything are\u2014took still another shot at the subject. He interviewed a First Nations professor of Indigenous performance at the University of Toronto, Karyn Recollet, who was presumably asked by him to see the show so they could compare mythologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He began the collaboratively written back-and-forth discussion piece (sharing a byline, in fact, for what was an unusual  hybrid staff-freelance feature) \u2013 by describing the story of bug <\/em>as he saw it for his readers. His description was clear and linear. Recollet saw it differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she felt on entering the performance space that she had become some kind of \u201cwitness,\u201d a \u201cparticipant\u201d in something. For her, the event itself \u201cencompassed painful stories and transformations\u201d as \u201ca generative Indigenous harm-reductive process. . . . as though the stories themselves were strands of a web. . . . We were reminded that in the middle of colonial, racialized and gendered violence, we must become bugs to negotiate our terrain. . . . to carry the weight of generations of stolen children and difficult lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She continued: \u201cBonnell . . . prefaced the evening with a song that presenced water . . . and had the Indigenous women in the audience stand up so we could acknowledge their presence. . . . Bonnell\u2019s bug <\/em>created an ethical space that illuminated our responsibility to make sure that the conduits\u2014the artists, world builders and indigenous futurists\u2014are safe and free to activate land\/kin relationships . . . as a decolonial practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nestruck concluded the conversation by asking Recollet if she could offer a \u201cstar\u201d rating of the piece for readers, something done regularly with films and plays by the Globe. <\/em>Her response avoided the consumerist issues of stars entirely: for her, bug <\/em>was \u201ca full-on constellation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About ten days later, the controversy washed up onto the shores of Britain. Somehow, The Guardian <\/em>had heard about it, and on February 21 the paper asked several of its own cultural critics how they would respond to the issue if bug <\/em>were to open in London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the published story, Bonnell was given the first word and repeated that she had been the subject of racialized reviews in the past. In describing the Toronto situation, she noted that the critics were mostly white and male. Because of that, she said \u201cthey come at indigenous art with a different lens\u2014that often comes back to \u2018If I don\u2019t understand it, that means it\u2019s not good or it\u2019s not a valid form of theatre.\u2019 . . . I don\u2019t mind being critiqued. But at least let it come from a place of knowledge, of understanding what you\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardian <\/em>critic Lanre Bakare pointed out that \u201cskin colour is no guarantee that a critic will or won\u2019t be good.\u201d Referencing one of his own favourite critics, Ian Penman, Bakare noted that Penman was \u201ca white man who writes about Prince<\/em>. He\u2019s amazing because he brings 50 years of fandom to the craft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardian <\/em>film editor Catherine Shoard said that \u201cquality\u201d should be the benchmark for a review whoever writes it. \u201cFor me, the idea that you\u2019re not allowed to say whether you think something is good or not on the basis of your gender, or any other demographic, it\u2019s just crazy. . . . You\u2019re just perpetuating prejudice if you are not going to let people experience other cultures. . . . It\u2019s not like everyone who is in a particular profession who doesn\u2019t look exactly like you is some sort of privileged enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arifa Akbar, now the Guardian\u2019s<\/em> chief theatre critic (she replaced the now retired Michael Billington), pointed out that, in her own experience, she found that often \u201cwhite reviewers seem reluctant to engage with the quality of a play by an artist of colour.\u201d That said, she also saw Bonnell\u2019s position as \u201calmost like an inverted form of racism.\u201d She added, \u201cpeople should always be free to write outside their identity, walk around and imagine themselves in other shoes. Indeed, playwrights normally have to imagine experiences outside their own, and we trust and critique them on their ability to do so effectively. I feel like we should abide by that rule for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akbar noted that she was \u201ca south Asian born in Britain. Am I going to be attuned to Indigenous experience in a theatre in Canada? . . . You do wonder who will be left to do the review. Just by making this request, she [Bonnell] is showing how little diversity there is in theatre reviewing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the publication of the Guardian <\/em>article, I reached out to Robin Breon for his specific opinion on the controversy. Breon, a senior arts journalist in Toronto and long-time member of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association, has written regularly over the years on equity issues as they affect the arts in relation to race, cultural pluralism and diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what Yolanda Bonnell and Marjorie Chan did at Passe Muraille,\u201d he said, \u201cwas very interesting with regard to opening night invitations. In a very conscious and public way, they sought out writers who have been historically unprivileged and gave them privilege with regard to their own thoughts and reflections for this one particular show on the occasion of its Toronto opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t find their actions and motivations at all outside the mainstream of discussion and debate around cultural diversity being carried on at many levels across the country. It\u2019s now clear though that some of my colleagues found this role reversal (which is how I think of it) as somewhat objectionable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith regard to the follow-up article that appeared in The Guardian,\u201d <\/em>Breon added, \u201cI found it rather odd to have three distinguished British critics from different disciplines all chiming in with their take. While the article was interesting, I do think it was piling on. The fact that our local Toronto discussions were attracting this kind of attention in the U.K. while no other U.K. mainstream print outlet even appeared to notice it did seem a bit strange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks later, still another voice entered the scene: that of Drew Hayden Taylor, a much respected and widely-produced playwright, who just also happens to be a First Nations person himself. Writing in the Globe<\/em>, he said, \u201cMany times I have been approached by Artistic Directors curious about how I told a particular story, telling me there should be more \u2018fighting\u2019 to draw out the drama and information. Unlike in Hamlet,<\/em> most indigenous plays don\u2019t end with two-thirds of the cast dying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling Bonnell and Chan\u2019s decision to only invite specific ethnic groups to review the show \u201ca bold and gutsy move that had Toronto\u2019s artistic community talking,\u201d he went on to say that it was clear to him that when his plays were seen by indigenous people whose connection to the issues and \u201cbackground went back several thousands of years . . . they were tapping into a different understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that earlier, when Winnipeg\u2019s Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre produced an indigenous play, they actually took the pro-active step of issuing established critics a list of things that they hoped they would consider in their reviews. These included questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014How can you recognize and shift the gaze that you are using when attending theatre?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014How can you listen, learn and act in relationship to potential cultural differences?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More specifically about the bug <\/em>issue, Taylor said that when he and his partner attended, <\/em>they were the only Indigenous people there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo an argument could be made I suppose that white reviewers are the Lewis and Clark of Indigenous theatre, white people making their way into unfamiliar territory, occasionally getting things wrong but setting stuff up for discussion. . . . Heaven forbid if Stratford or Shaw were to only want white reviewers to see their work. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end\u2014given that Bonnell had told the Toronto Star <\/em>that the whole \u201cidea of critiquing an act that is ceremonial feels very wrong\u201d might well suggest that an error in judgement was being  been made to even call it theatre. It was that act of \u201cnaming\u201d that really did open the event to traditional theatrical practices such as opening night reviews and the many caprices of the very wide range of people who call themselves reviewers these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me personally, if a writer says their work involves private ceremony or cultural ritual and they want to invite only certain people to it, I have no problem staying away. Because, by definition, it is not <\/em>theatre. It is rather pre-dramatic ritual, like a wedding. We don\u2019t crash people\u2019s weddings or bar mitzvahs. No one \u201creviews\u201d such events. They really are private.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if a writer and a professional director are choosing to hold such an event in a public space (like a theatre), and if they are actually charging money for people to enter that space, then no one should be surprised when the event is treated as <\/em>theatre and no one writing about it should be privileged. The core issue in this situation really has nothing to do with ethnicity or colour or religion or sexual preference. It has to do with naming<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did Bonnell and Chan make a mistake to throw bug<\/em> open to critical comment by naming<\/em> it theatre? Perhaps. If something is calling itself theatre and is therefore going to be open to comment, it must be open to comment by anyone. And whoever comes comes and whoever is writing must have the freedom and responsibility to respond to that work with honesty, intelligence and sensitivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some works\u2014and maybe this is a case in point\u2014just aren\u2019t created to be theatre<\/em>. Theatrical they may be. Dramatic they may be, but maybe the term pre-dramatic really is the right one for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said, if I encounter a work that falls into that category I would accept it in that light and simply not write about it. Not everything needs to be reviewed. And I\u2019m really okay with that notion both in theory and in practice. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

*<\/a>Don Rubin<\/strong> is Managing Editor of Critical Stages <\/em>and editor of its Book Review section. He is the series editor of Routledge\u2019s six-volume World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre <\/em>and founding Editor of the Canadian Theatre Review. <\/em>He is Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar in the Department of Theatre at Toronto\u2019s York University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2020 Don Rubin
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-critics-on-criticism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/image1-3.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":792,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/greece-being-active-with-theatres-closed\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":0},"title":"GREECE: Being Active with Theatres Closed","author":"Don Rubin","date":"May 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Irene Moundraki* Report from the Hellenic Association of Theatre and Performing Arts Critics\u00a0 Communication, teamwork, coexistence, cooperation, collectivity. This is theatre: the product of dialogue and democracy. When challenged or surrounded by very severe crises, it may take a short \u201cbreak,\u201d but it does not \u201cdisappear\u201d from view. It stays\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Covid"","block_context":{"text":"Covid","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/category\/covid\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/06\/flag-greece.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":875,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/a-pandemic-theatre-album-of-first-reactions-%ce%b1n-introduction\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":1},"title":"A Pandemic Theatre \u201cAlbum\u201d of First Reactions: \u0391n Introduction","author":"Don Rubin","date":"June 17, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Savas Patsalidis* Pandemic: from the greek words \u201c\u03c0\u03b1\u03bd=all\u201d and \u201c\u03b4\u03ae\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2=people.\u201d A disease that has spread across a large region, multiple\u00a0continents\u00a0or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of people. 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You'll spot a pattern. One says: \"In 2009, all of JournalSpace's data, including every single blog hosted on it, was deleted by a disgruntled employee.\" Another reads:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/Image1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/Image1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/Image1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/04\/Image1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/theatre-in-montenegro-an-unfinished-cultural-transition\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":3},"title":"Theatre in Montenegro: An Unfinished Cultural Transition","author":"Don Rubin","date":"May 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Maja Mr\u0111enovi\u0107* Artistic activities in Montenegro (population 630,000) are still largely characterized by a traditional approach, with very little interdisciplinary experimentation and social engagement. The theatre system is disjointed and unevenly distributed[1]: the standard bearers of its theatre activity are the two national theatres\u2014the Montenegrin National Theatre in Podgorica and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National Reports"","block_context":{"text":"National Reports","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/category\/national-reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2020\/05\/image8-2.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":473,"url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/21\/poland-internet-theatre-and-insufficient-state-support-for-the-artists\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":4},"title":"POLAND: Internet-theatre and Insufficient State Support for the Artists","author":"Don Rubin","date":"May 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Tomasz Mi\u0142kowski* Theatres in Poland have been closed since March 12, 2020. Likewise, cinemas, restaurants, cafes and sports facilities. The pandemic has frozen economic and social life. 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