The question he asked: Is NTS a wonderful place with highly successful alumni as the ads say or is there someone he should talk to who may have another perspective on acting schools, what they promise and deliver?
This was my response to the journalist:
You may be asking the wrong person or the right person, depending on where you sit with the idea (creation) of an acting school, its purpose, importance, or relevance.
Though my ideas on acting schools have somewhat changed since the late 1970s, some ideas have not, in particular where it pertains to establishments like the National Theatre School.
In the ‘70s, the theatre people I hung out with were generally allergic to NTS. It was perceived as an establishment type (privileged) institution that apparently guaranteed a quicker entry into the sacred kingdom of Canadian theatre, Stratford in particular. Of course! The “allergy” was in part due to the opinion that NTS preached, taught and practiced a colonialist, trickle-down, top-down theatre education template. The school, in the view of many in English Montreal, did not promote or instill individual expressions of acting reflecting the dreams and nightmares of an authentic Canadian reality but a standardized approach to theatrical expression – from England. NTS did not reflect a (1970s) present-day, organic Canadian reality but an imposed (colonialist) reality in which Canadians would constantly be made to feel second-class citizens on home turf unless they could pretend to sound and look more English than the English from England. Culturally speaking, in the ‘70s, “National” was a misnomer. Colonial was a better fit. I know that with time the school has probably changed its approach to acting and theatre. How much? I don't know the answer to that. But there’s the rub. Take Julliard, for example.
According to many theatre people and audiences in New York, the best production ever of Angels In America (Millenium Approaches) was its New York premiere in 1992 at Juilliard - when Tony Kushner was a playwright-in-residence at the School. I saw the play on Broadway in 1993 when I was living in New York. And though people loved the Broadway production they would always point to (and lament) the one produced at Julliard the year before. Considering how quickly this play hit the stage after the AIDS epidemic of the mid and late 1980s, the question is: has any theatre school in Canada contributed any relevant piece of theatre on issues relevant to the society at large?
There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when my dear friend (and director) Tibor Feheregyhazi (now deceased) could tell instantly (at auditions) where an actor had studied acting in Canada – just by how he/she approached a character or a text. He was horrified. So was I when he told me. He would apparently listen to (and watch) the actor do his/her audition and would immediately say to himself (he’s from NTS, she’s from York, he studied at Ryerson, or University of Alberta, or University of Regina, or University of Saskatchewan.) Then he'd run to his office and look at his files and the actor's resumé and BINGO! He was always right. Rarely, if ever, did he miss the mark. This is no joke. It’s a nightmare!
Like manufacturing companies that put out cars and appliances year after year spending millions telling people how and why they’re different (cars that ultimately share the basics: carriage, at least four wheels, a motor, a trunk, a steering wheel and seats) acting schools promote easily recognizable acting templates like status symbols, and both the schools and students are proud of that fact. NTS was no different in the ‘70s and ‘80s and early ‘90s. I can only speak for those years because that is when I became acutely aware of the problem with all acting schools in Canada. The irony is, of course, that a NTS student would have felt a huge sense of pride (and accomplishment) at the comment: “You studied at NTS, didn’t you?” To many, that statement in the form of a question would have been a huge compliment, and, in many cases, it was meant as a compliment.
Let's not forget: In the late ‘70s and during early ‘80s, Stratford, and many professional theatres in Canada, were enjoying the last days of being run by or populated with repressed, middle-aged gay men (most residing unfortunately in communities hostile to gay people) whose interest lay mainly in well articulated Shakespeare and in young boys with cupid faces and tight butts. No joke.
In the 1990s of course a different problem emerged: the same people who graduated from the school in the '70s and '80s now considered it a status symbol to teach there, whether they were qualified or not did not matter.
in 2001, a young ('hot') director I was working with at Soulpepper informed me that he had just been offered a job to teach at NTS. Should he take the job, he asked? This young director was very bright, but his understanding of actors and acting was minimal, intellectual at best. I suggested that if he had long-term plans and goals with theatre he should choose an experienced director whose work he admired and to propose him/her to NTS and to also propose that he be allowed to assist him/her. The young director thought my suggestion was interesting and then accepted the job.
In other words, the institution, what it represents as a cultural symbol, as a status symbol, for its students and its teachers, is bigger and more culturally relevant than the artists and teachers that attend or teach there and bigger than the art the students produce.
This is no different than the Canadian bureaucratic artistic community at large that has castrated our culture, where the institutions are privileged and funded and not necessarily the artists, where culture has noting to do with the art artists produce but with the general noise being made about culture in the various cultural institutions, where it's often more attractive and rewarding to work for an arts institution or council than to work as an artist in the real world having to apply for an arts grant.
Here’s a story you may find interesting: In 1982, at Stratford, while working as an apprentice actor, I was asked to be the tour guide for the visiting French acting class from NTS (I spoke French). A colleague was asked to be the tour guide for the English acting class from NTS. At one point both groups met in the main festival theatre. The English students were there first: as soon as they set foot on the stage you could swear they had just landed in MARS or in HEAVEN: they froze, awestruck at the immensity of the moment, choked and numbed by it. They couldn’t move. They clearly were treating it like an altar, like something that was beyond their humanity, a far cry from where any actor (a devil, or Arlecchino) should be. When the French students hit the stage: BOOM! No fear! The place exploded. Immediately the French actors ran across the stage, broke into soliloquies and song and duets, ran up the aisles, went all the way up to the catwalk and exchanged (yelled) dialogue with schoolmates from scenes they were studying at NTS. The place literally exploded with electric energy. There was no reverence for the place. The French students immediately justified why that theatre was built in the first place. Young as they were, they literally took it over. Made it their own for the brief time they were there.Owned. There’s the difference. I was very depressed that afternoon in 1982. I knew that what I had seen defined (culturally and artistically) the two Canadas of the two solitudes.
English NTS had clearly prepared the students to revere the place; French NTS had encouraged the actors to be and express all of who they were. And they did.
Simon Callow, since 1985 (in his book: Being An Actor), has been addressing the diminished role of the actor (and his craft) in the theatre. In his 2001 Foreword of Michael Chekhov’s reprinting of “TO THE ACTOR”, Callow states: “The last time there was a full debate about acting in the British theatre was in the late 1950s and early 1960s of the last century, and it may be interesting to consider what came out of it. The debate was provoked by the revolution in playwriting at the Royal Court Theatre, which led to an urgent demand for new kinds of acting.”
This revolution apparently ushered in the (historically and culturally important) wave of “angry young man” theatre: Look Back In Anger, etc.
Today, Callow says, experiment has become “centered on design and concept, both under the control of the director. The actor’s creative imagination – his fantasy, his instincts for gesture – (is) of no interest; all the creative imagining (is) done by the director and the designer.”
Callow would not be surprised to learn that most theatres in Canada (AND THEATRE SCHOOLS) practice director-driven theatre – and a mediocre one at that. And it’s killing our theatre. Even those companies (AND THEATRE SCHOOLS) purportedly claiming to be actor-centered theatres (OR SCHOOLS), and founded on that principle, have, sadly, abandoned what they set out to be, and have become, instead, colonialist-second-fiddle-facsimile establishment theatre companies and schools. Nothing more. The theatres (OR THEATRE SCHOOLS) may be different in size and yearly operating budgets, but the mentality is one and the same. IN ENGLISH CANADA.
Can you imagine a revolution on acting being provoked by present-day “resident” playwrights out of the Stratford or Shaw Festivals - or even Soulpepper? Or from NTS? Or from any of the smaller companies or theatre schools?, or from our community of playwrights? Not in a million years. The colonialist-infested mindset permeating professional theatre and acting schools (NTS is no exception), and the pursuit of dollars, success, and a relative – minuscule - fame in the place of the pursuit of ideas and organic creations that deal with issues our society deems important, taboo or ignores, have essentially castrated our theatre and theatre artists.
Theatre schools, like our playwrights and theatre companies - for the most part – foster and want good-little-boys-and-girls actors. At least, the pedagogic template and theatrical works by professional playwrights and theatres - for the most part - emanate that energy and reflect that need.
Since the ‘50s we have built more cathedrals of theatre than anything else, and take pride in that fact. NTS is one of our finer cultural institutions. Has it nurtured and fostered actors who have created lasting original authentic Canadian works? How many?
Great societies of the past (enjoying an explosion of cultural activity) did not promote the positives; they acknowledged - and took responsibility for - the negatives: the positives took care of themselves. After 50 years, it’s better for NTS to ponder what it didn’t do, where it failed and why, instead of celebrating what it has done and where it has succeeded. Like any theatre production the audience, the public, ultimately, rightly or wrongly, tells us whether our theatre or acting has been relevant or not.
And if the be all and end all of our collective and individual cultural efforts (if the goal of our theatre and acting learning and practice) is to end up playing a lead role in Bonanza, like Lorne Greene, in Star Trek, like William Shatner, or Sandra Oh in Grey's Anatomy, then maybe we should consider voting for a head of government whenever Americans go to the polls. The question is: If Sandra Oh had never landed a role in Grey's Anatomy where would she fit in Canada's present-day cultural (TV/film/theatre) landscape? And if a "national" theatre school (English side) instills a sense of individual voices and expression why would Andrew Moodie feel the need to write for the spring 2011 issue of ACTRA TORONTO PERFORMERS "Sharing the Spotlight: Diversity is not about taking the spotlight away from anyone; it's about sharing the spotlight together"? And why would ACTRA winter 2011 Magazine include an article (with contribution by Jani Lauzon - Actra Diversity Chair) that stresses "Today, over 11 million people in Canada are either culturally or physically diverse (visible minorities, Aboriginal or disabled). The outcome of this is seen visually in our daily lives as one walks on our streets but is not reflected on our screens."?
This refrain has been playing on repeat for awhile. Canada has been promoted as one of the most culturally diverse countries on the planet for awhile, at least since the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (established July 19, 1963) handed in its final report in 1969. NTS was established in 1960. Do the math.
Best regards,
Tony
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