Festival season is upon us. During the March Break, community theatres from the west gather in Owen Sound (WODL Festival March 15-20) and from the north in North Bay (QUONTA Festival March 17-21), to hold their annual feast of theatre. A week later, the east will feast in Peterborough (EODL March 24-28). Meanwhile ACT-CO (Central Ontario) continues its traveling three-adjudicator festival which winds up on April 10. And then we will advertise the titles of the “four best plays in Ontario” which will assemble in London for the Theatre Ontario Festival May 19-23.
It all sounds a bit like “Best in Show” where one dog walks away with the coveted ribbon, but really we all know that the best dog is our dog. We love it, it loves us back. The “best” plays produced by community theatres may never even be entered in a festival - whether from lack of funds to take the play on the road, bad timing, or because of inexperience or even insecurity. Winners must always be modest about the awards we win and the recognition we receive. Some of it may be luck. Or fate.
The ancient Greeks knew about fate. Athenians invented the drama festival twenty-five hundred years ago. Every spring Tragedies, Comedies and Satyr plays were performed at the Feast of Dionysus for audiences of thousands who traveled from around the known world. At the end of it all, a panel of ten judges each selected a winner and threw their votes into a pot. It was the priest of Dionysus who selected the winner – by pulling only five votes out of the pot, and destroying the other five. Fate actually chose the winner. Humility prevailed. The winner never knew if the judges agreed with the decision of the gods.
Drama Festivals have never really been about the “best”. They are about celebrating the idea of theatre through a representative sampling of good productions. In ancient Greece, one of the prizes for winning was an invitation to return the following year with another new play. Other competitors had to go through a selection process but the previous year’s winner was entered automatically. Can you imagine last year’s winner of the Theatre Ontario Festival being automatically invited to return this year with a new unadjudicated production? No wonder Sophocles won so often.
Of course the difference between the ancient Greeks and our own festivals, is that the Greeks allowed only original work. Their festival, the City Dionysia, was 100 years old before re-productions were allowed. The pressure was just too great to see the old plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides performed again. (And actors wanted those juicy roles.) Perhaps our festivals will become known for moving in the opposite direction – from relying on published play scripts to courageously premiering the work of our own local playwrights – and entering these productions in drama festivals where other groups can see them.
Whatever happens, drama festivals are here to stay. In the past decade there has been a noticeable strengthening of the festival culture in Ontario. Adjudication is sometimes the only professional input community theatres receive in the course of their season. And they thirst for it. Many groups in ACT-CO and WODL arrange for two or even three of their productions to be adjudicated each year – not for the awards (which dwindle in number as the competition increases) but for the learning.
There are other ways to learn of course. The Theatre Ontario Talent Bank lists Play Polishers who can be brought in to assist in the birth of a new production. A sort of midwife, if you will. And some day Theatre Ontario will once again have funds to financially support this essential work. (We’re working on it.) But for now, the ancient idea of a drama competition remains the foundation of the learning process for community theatres.
No comments:
Post a Comment