Arts scene too timid

SYLVAIN-JACQUES DESJARDINS | Canada's arts scene is in pathetic need of local innovation, said May Ebbitt Cutler during a talk entitled "Fear of the Original: A Canadian Phobia." Speaking to about 100 people in Moot Court at Chancellor Day Hall last Wednesday, the founder of Tundra Books pleaded for arts funding agencies and production companies to give Canadian works a chance, rather than relying on the tried and true. "What are they so afraid of?" asked Cutler, who was also the first female mayor of Westmount, from 1987 to 1991. With disgust, she noted that most Canadian arts companies, from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the Shaw and Stratford Festivals, have been ignoring homegrown works in favour of foreign productions, while "siphoning" the provincial and federal governments for million-dollar grants -- provided through public taxes. If original Canadian works continue to be ignored, she added, perhaps it's time the government launched a Royal Commission to examine the issue. The controlling powers that decide which works deserve to be funded, she said, fear original domestic works as the "Nazis or political conservatives" would, because new art is "restless, unpredictable and revolutionary." As it should be, she intoned. Producers, she continued, reason they can't cash in on local creativity; it would be too "dicey" and theatres would remain empty. That kind of thinking, she said, "breaks my heart." With sarcasm she added, "It's so much easier to buy patterns or productions from elsewhere." Cutler admitted that being in the arts can be a scary prospect, but if producers and directors reject Canadian pieces out of fear for their reputations, maybe they're in the wrong business. Cutler faced rejection herself last year, when hunting for someone to fund her first children's musical, Ah Pootee, That's Snow! When she was rebuffed from every door she knocked on, she thought, "Is this what anybody who writes original work goes through?" But she did not allow herself to be discouraged and produced the show herself. "I'm a tough old bitch," she said about her determination to produce her musical. Her impetus to found Tundra Books in 1967, which she sold to McClelland and Stewart Inc. two years ago, was also fueled by rejection when no Canadian company would consider her first book, I Once Knew an Indian Woman. So she published it herself and Tundra went on to be one of the most prestigious publishers of Canadian children's and art books, including Roch Carrier's classic The Hockey Sweater. Cutler's number one rule when selecting new manuscripts to publish was freshness. "If it reminded me of something else," she said, "I wasn't interested." And, while the Canadian book industry has finally recognized the importance of publishing our own writers, after the extraordinary success of authors like Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Robertson Davies and Michael Ondjaatje, the rest of our entertainment industry still chooses to ignore Canadian works. "Canadian theatre, music and arts scenes are in the same sorry state the book industry was 30 years ago," she said. Quebec's French arts scene is more encouraging, Cutler said, since the language barriers have always forced the milieu to reinvent itself to remain vibrant. But, she noted, far too many producers still choose to do and redo Molière or even translate American works. If it weren't for innovative people such as writer-director-producer-actor Robert Lepage, nothing new would ever be produced. "Yet, he was discovered in Edinburgh," she said, sarcastically, adding our talent has to go elsewhere to be noticed. Ther was, however, more than criticismto Cutler's talk. She lauded the Centaur Theatre for encouraging Canadian productions, while applauding poets, stand-up comics and music bands that innovate on the club-circuit. She also suggested ways to spawn more Canadian works: opera and symphony companies should scout music schools and smaller outfits to find artists capable of composing new pieces; Stratford should free one of its three stages for Canadian works each season, culled from some of the 1,500 Canadian plays written over the last century; and publicly funded museums should hold at least one entirely Canadian show per year. As well, she recommended the federal government advertise our cultural sector in airports around the world, much as it does through trade missions for industry. With all of the talent present in Montreal alone, Cutler stressed, "there's no reason why we shouldn't be the world's third (art capital) after Paris and New York." Cutler's talk served as the annual Hugh MacLennan Lecture, sponsored by the Friends of the Library.