sauiieiiaaeniabimammmumauiatals Arts/Review Bethune: GONE THE BURNING SUN. Aplay by Ken Mitchell. A Fend Players produc- tion directed by Paul Crepeau. With Duncan Fraser as Norman Bethune and musical accompaniment by Jing Jing Du. At the Station Street Arts Centre, Vancouver, until Nov. 3. Watching Gone the Buming Sun, Can- adian playwright Ken Mitchell’s riveting play on Dr. Norman Bethune, inadvertent- ly brings to mind a contrast. Several years ago CBC television showcased a Chinese film about the noted Canadian physician, humanitarian and hero of China’s Com- munist-led revolution. It was China’s way of paying tribute to the Ontario-bom doc- tor whose efforts at field surgery aided the war against the invading forces of imperial Japan. Well-intentioned, the film portrayed Bethune the dedicated Communist and in- temationalist; what it failed at was show- ing Bethune the human being. Not so this play, which runs until Nov. 3 at Vancouver’s Station Street Arts Centre. The Bethune of Mitchell’s play, based strongly on the man’s. own speeches and letters, shows a person by tums arrogant, belligerent, conceited, egotistical, postur- ing, violent, moody, passionate and, to a fault, dedicated to the cause of socialism and social justice — in short, a human being, albeit not.an ordinary one. Veteran actor Duncan Fraser brings to life the subject so long ignored by Can- ada’s ideologically motivated estab- lishment, in the process showing how Bethune’s apparently anti-social traits led naturally to the person revered in China, the country in which he died more than 50 years ago. . That Bethune, so long the posthumous victim of deliberate obscuring, should pro- voke so many interpretations — several biographies, studies and films (including the long-awaited epic starring Donald Sutherland which opens in Vancouver this Duncan Fraser brings Norman Bethune to life. week) — belies the myth of Canadian dull- ness. Watching this play could help inspire other Canadians who feel their grip on originality and energy may be slipping. The play opens and closes with scenes of Bethune stretched on a bed and mutter- ing in a delirium; the former as he recovers from radical, self-prescribed surgery for tuberculosis in a New York state sana- torium, the latter as he dies from an infec- © tion incurred during surgery in China. In between Fraser the actor takes his character through several vignettes from the doctor’s personal and political life: a violent confrontation with his ex-wife’s lover; lecturing to medical students in Montreal with iconoclastic glee at the ex- pense of the medical establishment; argu- ing with those who want him to leave his mobile surgical blood unit during the Spa- nish Civil War; discussing medical needs with Mao Zedong with a believable mix- ture of awe, reverence and assertiveness. Throughout, Fraser comes to uncannily resemble Bethune, aided by a script that makes flesh and blood out of a legend. Musician Jing Jing Du provides mood-in- ducing accompaniment on the pipa, a trad- itional Chinese stringed instrument. What emerges is a picture of Bethune, the complete iconoclast. He can attack the for-profit medicine espoused by his supe- riors at the medical academy. He can also report after a visit to the Soviet Union that, contrary to propaganda, the “workers’ paradise” does have social ills like pros- person and revolutionary joined titution. But, Bethune asserts to an increas- ingly hostile audience, the USSR has developed socialized medicine, a practice that will cut out disease at its source. As such, the character and spirit of Nor- man Bethune dwell outside of the tem- poral; if history embarrasses progressives by dating certain political positions, there is a general conviction exemplified by Bethune that perseveres. No one ever need deny or be ashamed of a commitment that saw the Canadian left support the cause of Republican Spain against fascism, or the birth of socialist China (or, by inference, support for post-Bethune struggles such as Vietnam). Mitchell’s play seems to resolve a dich- otomy that either saw Bethune interpreted as rugged individualist on one hand or a committed Communist on the other (al- though it is true that Gone the Burning Sun pays little attention to Bethune’s party membership). Bethune as depicted is dialectics personified; the individualist who railed against all authority becomes the renowned servant of the collective cause, precisely because of his unique, rebellious nature. If there was a fault in that personality, it was a tempestuousness that ultimately caused his untimely death. Bethune here is the antithesis of medi- ocrity, and he is aware of it, attacking blandness and complacency. And we are left to reflect on a national negative self- image. But if we do suffer the scourge of mediocrity, it is because some of our greatest heros — Bethune, Louis Riel, Wil- liam Lyon Mackenzie — have been sup- pressed or viciously misinterpreted by an ideologically-directed media that includes our education system. Gone the Burning Sun deserves to be seen, not only because it is good entertain- ment, but because in drawing a portrait of a revolutionary and a great Canadian, it is inspiring. —Dan Keeton Former leader recalls history of bushworkers THE UNTOLD STORY OF ONTARIO BUSHWORKERS. A Political Memoir by Bruce Magnuson. Paperback. 146 pages. Published by Progress Books, Toronto. $14.95 The long-awaited story of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers’ Union has now been partially told. In an easy-to-read narrative style, bolstered with numerous documenta- tion, The Untold Story of Ontario Bush- workers, by former bushworkers : leader Bruce Magnuson, provides an intriguing overview of a union that was ultimately a victim of the Cold War. ~ Founded at the tum of the century, this union became a tradition in the Ontario for- estry industry. In the beginning, it was main- ly composed of socialist-minded Finnish immigrants who had a penchant for demo- cratic procedures and direct action. They held a strong belief in working class internationalism. In fact, the Finns constant- ly sought to unite and educate their fellow bushworkers regardless of ethnic origin. Magnuson, a Swedish immigrant, was a product of that internationalist school, as were French-Canadians, Yugoslavs and Anglo-Saxons. Many of them were elected to leadership positions, along with the Finns. Together, they forged a powerful, united union that at its peak in 1950 had some 25,000 members. This membership build- up followed industry-wide bargaining achieved in 1946. 10» Pacific Tribune, October 22, 1990 However, that unity was not strong enough in itself to withstand the onslaught of a united front of forestry corporations, governments and labour lieutenants of big business, whose main weapon was anti- communist rhetoric of the Cold War. By the mid-Fifties the union was in a pitiful shambles, betrayed and powerless. It is ironic that the Lumber and Sawmill Workers’ Union was the first organization in North America to show concern for indis- criminate cutting, damage to the forest floors and lack of reforestation. In 1944, the union published a well-documented pam- phlet written by Magnuson. It was titled Ontario’s Green Gold — How Can We Con- serve It For The People? With the destruction of the union, the forestry industry went on its merry way, completely disregarding the warnings and advice offered in Ontario’s Green Gold. Un- fortunately, the union’s worst fears have been realized. Ontario’s forests are now in shambles. The Untold Story of Ontario’s Bush- workers is a great deal more than a tale of intrigue and destruction of a democratic union by outside forces. It contains sharp lessons for today’s unionists — and a warn- ing for the Canadian labour movement. Principled unionism is still a necessity. Unity is still the watchword. — Jim Tester Paxton at Play: The experiences of Asian women are wrought in frank fashion in Coming Into Passion, a solo perfor- mance by playwright Jude Narita at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Oct. 23-27 at 8:30 p.m. Vignettes include a punk teenager, a Filipina mail-order bride and a prostitute telling about her “good” job. Presented in conjunction with the Powell Street Festival Society. Concert: He hasn’t been « in town for a while, so here’s — the chance to see vet- eran folkie and topical songwriter Tom Paxton in , concert at the PAXTON Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He’s on Oct. 29, 8 p.m. - Art: An exhibition of the often-ig- nored genre of Victorian Artis on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery until Nov. 5. Paintings are from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton. TV: Anyone who’s seen Amadeus has _ probably been bitten by the Mozart bug. Indulge the fever with Mozart’s opera Van. East; Sputnik and Hamlet Don Giovanni on KCTS public television Wednesday, Oct. 31, 8 p.m.A three-hour stereo production by Franco Zeffirelli. Actor Kevin Kline, who did so well playing a white South African in Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom and acom- ical psychopath in A Fish Called Wanda, tries on Shakespeare for size in Hamlet, on KCTS. Performed in contemporary costume with spare sets, for three hours on Friday, Nov. 2, 10 p.m. The Seattle public television station also airs, on The American Experience series, The Satellite Sky, an idio- syncratic look at the space-race years immediately following the launching of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik in 1957. It’s on Monday, Nov. 5, 9 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 11, 5 a.m. Closed captioned. Sentimental Women Need Not Apply examines the role of nurses from World War I on, using archival footage, stills, film clips and interviews. Purports to look at the politics and prejudice in a mainly women’s profession marred by low pay, lack of respect and encroach- ments of medical technology. It airs Wednesday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m.; Monday, Nov. 12, 4.a.m.