a The cast of Highball.

Touchstone’s ‘Highball’
_awork not to be missed

_ Highball, a production about
‘the early logging days in B.C.
Stands out like a spar tree in the
veritable forest of drama offer-
ings in Vancouver today.
Highball is a totally natural
‘Coming together of song and
Script, a credit to the collabora-
tive efforts of songwriter Barry
Hall and playwright Ronald
Wihs.
_The production opens with
Story of those hardy immi-
8rant youths who trudged out of
their villages in Scandinavia to
| Ome to Canada, winding up in
casing camps up and down this

Willie, a young Finn played by

_ 2Uergen Beerwald comes into an

isolated logging camp and meets

_ Nels, a seasoned logger from

Sweden, played with great skill
by Klaus Werner.

Willie’s introductions to log-

Sing becomes the audience’s in-

| ‘oduction, or, if you were a log-

8er, becomes a living memory of

your own early days in the

Willie meets fellow loggers
Kootney (Lindsay Bourne), Sven
(Barry Hall) and the old wobbly
bullcook (Dick Clements). All of
them confront their overbearing
hooktender (Frank Holden) at
the job site and later, in a whore-
house in Port Alberni where they
vie for the attentions of Annie
(Heidi Archibald) and Shelly
(Susanna Puttonen).

Most of the actor/singers play
several roles, but the characters
we first see them as are sustained
throughout. We find them in the
camps, pulling logs in tugboats
and eventually winding up, as so
many loggers did, down in Van-
couver’s skid road, injured and
drinking too much.

Not all were beaten, however,
as some join the union, and find
in it a vision of the future.

Make sure you don’t miss this
Touchstone Theatre production
held over to Dec. 14 at the Janus
Theatre, 2611 W. 4th Ave.
Phone 687-3531 for tickets.

0 |
i |
|

pe os. _ —dJanice Harris }
“1980 ANC CALENDAR _
Our 1980 calendar will be a special memento. It is dedicated
to the commemoration of an historic occasion — The 25th
Anniversary of the Freedom Charter and The Congress of
the People.
IPRICE $5.00 () #
Call 732-8528 or mail to:
ANC (SA), Box 302,
Adelaide Postal Station
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5C 2J4
‘

Conference
on Finnish
immigrants

Eila Male, Maple Ridge, writes:
An international conference on the
history of Finnish Immigration to
North America was held at the On-
tario Institute for Studies in Educa-
tion (OISE) in Toronto, Nov. 1-3.
The conference was sponsored by
the Multicultural Historical Society
of Ontario, OISE, and the Institute
for Migration, Turku, Finland.

Delegates to the conference from
B.C. included Matt Varila, Sylvia
Lowe, Effie Niemela, Osmo Lahti,
Ellen Linden and me.

Significantly, the conference op-
ened with a reception at the Finnish
Organization of Canada’s Don
Hall. Helen Tarvainen, chairperson
of the Finnish Organization of Can-
ada, welcomed the delegates, and
two papers were delivered — one,
by professor Jules Paivio, a veteran
of the Spanish Civil War, and an-
other by Satu Repo on the murder
of V. Rosvall and J. Voutilainen,
two woodworkers’ union organiz-
ers, 50 years ago at Thunder Bay.

Over the following two days
about 30 papers were given con-
cerning Finnish immigration to

Australia,~South America, South .

Africa, Sweden, U.S. and Canada.
There was also a special reception
hosted by the embassy of Finland,
and a closing banquet which had
greetings from prime minister: Joe
Clark, Governor-General Schreyer,
Ontario premier Davis, Toronto
mayor John Sewell, and from presi-
dent Urho Kekkonen of Finland.

One of the highlights of the con-
ference was an address by Sirkka
Tuomi-Lee, an actress and drama
teacher from Baltimore, who told
of the conditions under which early
Finnish drama was produced. As a
child, she attended the Socialist hall
and remembered the dedication of
the early immigrants. They would
come off shift from the mines at
midnight, change their clothes and
go to rehearse a play in an unheated
hall.

The main weaknesses of the con-
ference were that it was planned in
cooperation with right wing forces
and too little attention was given to
the role of progressives in the work-
ing class movement, and that it con-
centrated on eastern Canada and
the United States.

However, the truth did come

through loud and clear in most of
the papers presented. The majority
of Finns which immigrated to this
country were socialists and they
were the ones who built the halls,
and functioned culturally, athletic-
ally and in all the popular move-
ments of the day. The role of the
White or ‘‘church Finns’”’ pales into
insignificance compared to the Red
or working class Finns. Some 40 to
50 per cent of the membership of
the Socialist and Communist Par-
ties in North America in the 1920s
and 1930s was Finnish.

Labor Scene
missed point

Art Kube, regional director of ed-

ucation, Canadian Labor Congress,
Vancouver, writes: Bruce
Magnuson either didn’t read the
book Vodka-Cola (‘‘Vodka-Cola a
scurrilous look,’’ Tribune, Nov. 16,
1979) or he missed the whole point.

Charles Levinson points out the
dangers to the job security of work-
ers in western Europe and North
America because of barter deals
and co-production arrangements
between multinational corporations
and the USSR, the GDR, Poland,
Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugo-
slavia, Bulgaria, Hungary and
China. ’

The co-production arrangements
have already led to plant shutdowns
by these same multinationals in
West Germany, Italy, France, Lux-
embourg, Sweden, Finland, Switz-
erland, the UK, Belgium, the Neth-
erlands and the U.S. Levinson, as
general secretary of the Interna-
tional Chemical Workers’ Federa-
tion, points out that mu'tinationals
are flourishing under suc? o,ange-
ments while the bargaining *  OWer
of western workers, many of whom
his organization represents, is be-
ing greatly eroded.

The Tribune in the past has justly
criticized plant closures and
production transfers to the south-
ern U.S., Taiwan and Hong Kong.
In all honesty, I cannot see any ma-
jor variation to this same theme in
Levinson’s book.

As a trade unionist, I also resent-
ed Magnuson’s quote from Calvin
Coolidge, ‘‘The purpose of big bus-
iness is to maximize profits.’’ Even
with our philosophical differences,
I always thought that people came
before profits. I just hope that
Magnuson remembers the song of
yesteryear, ‘‘Just as Calvin Cool-
idge says — abolish the child labor

laws,’’ and start looking for better
quotes to make his point.

I am not opposed to detente but I
surely don’t know what loss of
workers’ jobs contributes to detente.

(Editor’s note: A copy of Art
Kube’s letter has been sent to the
Canadian Tribune which carried
Bruce Magnuson’s column that we
reproduced.)

Closed meeting
‘undemocratic’

Peter Marcus, Vancouver, writes:
What has the Vancouver Parks
Board got that must be kept so sec-
ret after every regular meeting? Af-
ter almost every meeting that I’ve
attended, there is an in-camera ses-
sion. I don’t think any other public
body, including city council, has so
many closed sessions.

It seems to me that it is a method
by which the board can avoid public
scrutiny and keep the public ignor-
ant of its actions, thereby allowing
members to get re-elected on their
names alone.

I believe that the board should
eliminate most, if not all, of the in-
camera meetings and open them up
so that the public can see clearly the
work of the park commissioners
and cast their ballots accordingly.
After all, we are the ones who pay
the bills.

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DEC. 16 — Variety concert featur-
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 7, 1979—Page 11