La Flamme, Michelle

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

Michelle La FlammeSpeaking Up, Speaking Out, Or Speaking Back: The Signposts Are In The Right DirectionThis collection of essays offers critical discussions that illumi-nate some of the power behind playwright Marie Clements’svision. There are many ways to associate her work with differentdebates and questions that have animated Canadian literary criti-cism. Whether her work is linked to larger postcolonial concernsregarding the “coming to voice” of Aboriginal writers, framedwithin the rising interest and acceptance of Aboriginal theatre thathas rocked the country since Highway’s seminal work Rez Sisters,or understood within a larger discourse around feminist writing,these essays suggest there is much interest in both the medium andthe message in her work. Clements is also one of many Aboriginal(and postcolonial Canadian) playwrights whose work offers a revi-sion of Canadian narratives predicated on the notion that Canadawas “won” by the colonial imperative. Much fruitful discussioncan come from understanding Clements's repeated thematic inter-est in this contentious Canadian history. Whether we understandher artistry as a playwright speaking up, speaking back, or speak-ing within, her work has the power to engage many scholars usingdiverse approaches to examine her plays.I’d like to offer another way of appreciating Clements’s workby placing it within Aboriginal theatre history in Canada. Like thework of Margo Kane, Tomson Highway, and Drew Hayden Taylor,Clements’s body of work has been an important part of a theatremovement that has given voice to Aboriginal writers in Canada.By also being Artistic Directors of their own companies, theseplaywrights have played a foundational role in the development ofAboriginal theatre in Canada. This larger theatrical movementhas included the organization of Canada’s first IPAA (IndigenousPerforming Artists Alliance) to create a space for Aboriginalartists to network and support each other’s work through collabo-rations and tours. Their plays, serious engagements, and pivotalroles within theatre companies map a new way of bringingAboriginal paradigms and worldviews into the context ofCanadian theatre. In short, I believe Marie Clements’s presence in contempo-rary theatre can be fruitfully appreciated and deeply understoodby centering her work within the milieu of many other Aboriginalxxviii • TRiC / RTaC • 31.2 (2010) • Michelle LaFlamme • pp xxviii-xxxTRiC / RTaC • 31.2 (2010) • Michelle LaFlamme • pp xxviii-xxx • xxixplaywrights in Canada. These playwrights possess power over theword, the direction, and the very building blocks of Aboriginaltheatre companies. These playwrights have been shaping thecurrent renaissance in Aboriginal theatre and bringing thesestories to Canadian audiences. Then there is the somewhat confounding issue of Aboriginalwomen writers’ approaches to questions of gender. Who isClements as a female playwright within the context of Aboriginaltheatre history? Although many Aboriginal people debate theexistence of “Aboriginal feminism,” which many see as anoxymoron, I would still hazard to suggest that another way ofappreciating Clements’s work is to look at it in the nationalcontext of Aboriginal women playwrights. Margo Kane’s FullCircle: First Nations Performance Company, Clements’s formercompany urban ink, Monique Mojica’s involvement with TurtleGals Performance Ensemble, and Yvette Nolan’s artistic vision forNative Earth Performing Arts suggest that members of this gener-ation of Aboriginal women playwrights have clearly establishedtheir roles in creating progressive theatre through their involve-ment in community theatre companies. Like Highway and Taylor,two of Canada’s most produced and celebrated Aboriginal play-wrights who cut their teeth while involved as Artistic Directorsfor Canada’s oldest Aboriginal theatre company, Native Earth,these women playwrights also have refined their vision and skillsby working collaboratively with other Aboriginal artists acrossCanada. Clements may be seen as one of these women who hashonoured the importance of (Aboriginal) theatre practice byinspiring a whole new generation. In closing, I must say that I am thrilled to have had the oppor-tunity to offer my voice to this burgeoning criticism thataddresses an Aboriginal playwright in Canada. So, I offer a fewwords about myself as a preface to my essay on Clements’s theatri-cal Medicine. I had the great honour of coordinating theIndigenous Performing Arts Alliance in its infancy, and bearingwitness to this transformative moment was critical for my under-standing of Aboriginal theatre communities. Years later, I wasinspired to teach UBC’s first History of Native Theatre course(2005). At that time the students were thirsty for critical work onthe plays that we addressed in the course, including Clements’sphenomenal play The Unnatural and Accidental Women. I ampleased to say that a few years later, volumes such as this willprovide hearty negotiations with Clements’s plays. For me, the larger Aboriginal context deserves to be recog-xxx • TRiC / RTaC • 31.2 (2010) • Michelle LaFlamme • pp xxviii-xxxnized as a preface to understanding the kind of power thatClements’s body of work has for Aboriginal theatre practitionersand Aboriginal audiences in Canada. However, the essays in thisvolume are, in many ways, writing from outside an Aboriginalcontext. Instead, these writers view Clements’s work throughother lenses, and from other theoretical positions. The writers inthis collection of essays try to understand Clements’s work by wayof English literature, its conventions, paradigms, and praxis. Theiressays suggest how Clements’s work “speaks back to” othertheatrical and literary forms and conventions. In sum, theseessays contribute to the growing awareness of, and criticalengagement with, a woman whose plays certainly offer one ofCanada’s most powerfully layered, unique, and deeply movingcontemporary theatrical experiences. Whether Clements’sartistry is approached through English literary conventions(speaking up), framed within postcolonial theory (speakingback), placed within Aboriginal theatre practice (speakingwithin), or read as part of feminist empowerment—on the question of her artistry, most critics agree.       

Speaking Up, Speaking Out, Or Speaking Back: The Signposts Are In The Right Direction

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/download/18429/19918

Speaking Up, Speaking Out, Or Speaking Back: The Signposts Are In The Right Direction

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University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals