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Winnipeg's Nellie (HE aa=
‘McClung Theatre

_ By PAULA FLETCHER
Nellie McClung group of
Innipeg is possibly the longest-

| "Unning women’s theatre in North

America, Many are fairly new; many
% the older ones are now defunct.
The Nellie McClung group began

_ With the women’s movement in 1969.

'S original members felt theatre was
most effective way to reach great
Numbers of grass roots women.
T asked Millie Lamb, a charter
Member of Nellie McClung, to tell
Canadian Tribune about her or-
8anization.

C.T.: What do you try to do with
Your theatre?
ie: Our women’s theatre con-
Centrates on Women’s real issues
and goals. It places them centre
Stage, both from the point of view of
Person and of the audience. Not
Only does it combat the stereotypes
Of women as sex objects but also
Shows them in positive roles, en-
8ged in the struggle for liberation.
on Do you mean women’s libera-

Millie: We don’t see it as separate
and apart from the struggle to eman-
Cipate the working class. In fact we

_ Ste it as an integral part.

C.T.: Is Nellie McClung a profes-
sional theatre?
Millie: The majority of women and
Men who come into the group have
! NO previous experience; they
ically learn through experience.
Ost members go to work, or attend
School or are working parents and
y very active in other move-
Ments. We write our own scripts.
Lately we have been writing collec-
tively. First we get together to decide
On how to handle a subject for a par-
ticular audience, say nurses. We
Usually meet with a group of them
beforehand to research conditions at
their workplace. We will assign a
Person to script the skit, then we'll
all go over it for touch-up and final
form. This system has been working

Very well for us and has produced

Some terrific scripts. To illustrate:
after our performance for the nurses
Many came tous andasked, ‘‘Do you
Work in hospitals? It was so much
an what happens there all the

Our theatre has provided a lot of
°Pportunities to involve women in
Positive productive roles, not only as
Performers and writers but in stag-

a movement and the business end

C.T.: What kind of audiences do
you play for? :
Millie: It’s fair to say the major
audience now consists of working
Women in the process of organizing
Unions or already in unions, such as
CUPE (Canadian Union of Public
Mployees), nurses as I mentioned,
80vernment employees such as
PSAC (Public Service Alliance of
Canada) and MGEA (Manitoba
J0Overnment Employees Associa-
tion) members. Other than women in
trade union movement who have
4 Certain political awareness, there
are literally thousands of others we
have played for at the Ys, churches,

Canadians have in recent years
n few films produced by the
cialist countries, hardly any
lations of plays, poems or
vels, virtually none from the
viet Union in particular.

A hostile Canadian official pol-
cy now embargoes Soviet-
anadian cultural exchanges, so
tours of dancers, musicians,
ther entertainers and art exhibits

for teachers, students, IODE, action
committees and other women’s
groups to whom these ideas are new,
exciting and terribly stimulating.
C.T.: So you don’t hire halls and
have a regular season? :
Millie: We’ ve done that but not in
the last year. For one thing, we're
too swamped with calls from various
groups of women in struggle who

want this kind of direction from us. °

So many women involved in unions
have told us, ‘‘In a five-minute skit
you can make a point clear that
we've been trying to make for a
couple of union meetings!”’

We also do street theatre. At the
Safeway strike and the Manitoba
Paramedical strike, to name two.
Our group was actually born out of
street or guerrilla theatre. We'd go
out to the shopping centres and do
skits about the need to remove abor-
tion from the Criminal Code before

we were kicked out by the security .

guard. But now we have an audience
for this type of theatre because the
women’s movement has become
broader and we offer them encour-
agement. Our street theatre always
meets with tremendous enthusiasm
from pickets and their supporters.

C.T.: Give us an idea of your
scripts, Millie.

Millie: First I’d like to say they're
100 per cent Canadian content. We
write about 95 per cent ourselves.
Those we don’t script, we like to
dramatize Manitoba women writers
such as Margaret Laurence and Nel-
lie McClung, also other Canadian
writers, and we concentrate on reg-
ional questions as well as the actual
experience of our audiences.

We try to make our point with

humor and satire. We have a skit,
The House that TV Built, and Com-

- mercials. In The House we take on

the TV industry and its portrayal of
women, as well as the fact that
money is what it's all about. The
commercials are shown up for their
insulting images of women.

One of our standards is Votes for
Men, a role reversal scripted from
the writings of Nellie McClung, con-
cerning a mock parliament held by
Manitoba women, where they were
the government and men came to ask
them for the vote. The script uses
exact quotes from Sir Rodmond Rob-
lin, premier at the time, in his argu-
ment to deny women the vote. In our
script the women use his arguments
on the men.

‘We have a host of trade union
skits, skits directed at the educa-
tional system, and simply exposing
the oppression-of women in our soci-
ety. We also have a lot of original
songs. Our skits and songs crystal-
lize immediate social and political
situations and make them very clear.
We make the point with humor, so
that the situations that confront
women and, suddenly, the dynamics
of these situations, are revealed in a
very concrete and humorous way.

C.T.: What are your plans for this
year?

Millie: We have a number of
engagements lined up already. We
average one or twoa month. We also
hope to get our best scripts together
into a book recounting our experi-
ence and encouraging other women
to begin women’s theatre which, we
have learned, adds a very important
dimension to the whole women’s
movement.

Scene from Votes for Men

(~ \

| Milton Acorn

after Brecht
_ By MILTON ACORN

I Milton Acorn, not at first aware

That was my name and what I knew was life,
Come from an Island to which I've often returned
Looking for peace and usually found strife.

‘til I came to see it was no pocket’

In a Saint's pants while outside trouble reigned;
And after all my my favourite mode

of weather’s been a hurricane

The spattered colour of the time has marked me
So I'm a man of many appearances:

Have come many times to poetry

And come back to define what was meant.

Often I’ve been coupled, and often alone
No matter how I try I can't choose

Which it shall be. I’ve been

Ill-treated, but often marvellously well-used.

What’s a man if not put to good use?
Nothing’s happened I want to forget.
What's a day without a notable
Event between sunrise and sunset?

My present lover finds me gentle

So gentle I'll be in my boisterous way.
Another one was heard to call me noble.
That didn’t stop her from going away.

To be born on an island’s to be sure
You are native with a habitat.
Growing up on one’s good training
For living in a country, on a planet.

Shall I tell you the soil’s red

As a flag? Sand a pink flesh gleam

You could use to tone a precious stone?
All its colours are the colours of dreams.

_ Perhaps only the colours / dream
For I grew under that prismatic sky
Like a banner of many colours
Alternately splashed and washed clean.

The Island’s small ... Every opinion counts.
I'm accustomed to fighting for them.

Lord I thank Thee for the enemies

Who even in childhood, tempered me.

I beg pardon, God, for the insult

Saying You lived and were responsible
...a torturous all-odds-counting manner
Of thinking marks me an Islander.

Evil’s been primary, good secondary

In the days I’ve been boy, youth and man.

I don’t look to any rule of pure virtue

But certainly not continuence of this damned ...

Damned? Damned did I say? This glorious age
When the ancient rule of classes is hit

And hit again. History’s greatest change

Is happening ... And I’m part of it.

from The Island Means Minago
: (Copyright 1975)
NC Selo

i

The politics of multiculturalism

By WILFRED SZCZESNY
Multiculturalism is first of aH a
demographic fact of Canadian reali-

ty, historically emerging from the

very process of our country’s growth
and development.

Through the decades of this cen-
tury, Canada has benefitted greatly
from the productive activity of the
vast numbers of immigrants who
have settled here. No less important
has been the role of multiculturalism
in this sense in the enrichment of
Canadian culture and the formation
of a distinctive Canadian identity.

Multiculturalism, however, is also
a set of government policies de-
signed to manipulate, to divide and
rule, to provide political leverage.

These two aspects of multicultur-
alism, its positive and negative sides,
together reveal the ruling class’s
basic approach to culture as some-

thing to be cynically manipulated to
maintain the status quo.

The Canadian government might
have adopted a policy of multicul-
turalism out of a belief that the coun-

‘try's many ethnic groups all have a

contribution to make to our society.
It might have, but it did not. Its
motivation in adopting that policy,
setting up an elaborate bureaucracy
and spreading its largesse was a de-
sire to counteract Quebec’s growing
demand that. its’ nationhood be
recognized.

As pressures from Quebec grew,
the federal government decided to
enlist the support of ethnic
minorities to maintain Anglo-
Canadian dominance. Appealing
first to the lust for power of the
right-wing leaders of the various
communities, the government en-
couraged concepts like the ‘‘third

group”’ and the ‘‘third force,” sug-
gesting that the communities which
are component parts of Canada’s two
nations are somehow equivalent to
the nations. Relying secondly on the
greed of those same “‘leaders’’, the
government set up an elaborate
mechanism to distribute money, jobs
and prestige to selected groups (i.e.,
right-wing organizations) within the
communities.

The last touch was their very own
cabinet minister through whom these
‘‘leaders’’ could approach the
government. Multiculturalism was
complete.

The Liberals who instituted the
policy had also hoped for other
benefits — like electoral support
which the Tory Cold Warriors had
chipped away — but these, for the
most part, failed to materialize.

For their part, the community

‘“leaders’’ grew tired of being con-
stantly referred to their own minister
whatever issue they might be raising.
More trouble and expense than it
was worth, the main responsibility
was shifted to the pravinces, and the
ministry was folded into another de-
partment.

Everyone (almost) was happy, and
especially Ottawa. The dichotomy
between multiculturalism and bi-
nationalism was maintained.

The policy finally paid off during
the Quebec referendum. Across the
country a large portion of the ethnic
communities fell into line behind the

- federalist position of the Anglo-

Canadian bourgeoisie, and in
Quebec the overwhelming majority
of non-French residents voted
‘“‘non.’’ The policy of multicultural-
ism stood revealed in all its naked-
ness.

. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 31, 1980—Page 7