HARLEM HITS STRATFORD

Djanet Sears' Canadian Classic Makes History

Not very many years ago, an artistic director of the Stratford Festival told a meeting of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association that he had no plans to mount Canadian plays at the festival because its mandate is to produce classic theatre, and Canada does not yet have any classic plays. Well, times have changed. Not only is the festival now commissioning new plays by Canadian writers, but it has started to produce a few Canadian classics. This year they're even producing a Canadian classic by a black woman.

"Can you imagine a black play written and directed by a black woman going to Stratford?" marvels Djanet Sears, whose successful script Harlem Duet runs from June through September, under her own direction. "It's the first time they've had a black director. It's the first time they've had a black play... ever. Which makes it the first time they've had a black woman's play; or a black woman director," she continues.

"I don't mean to criticize them," she qualifies. "On one hand, in 53 years they've never had a black play or a black director. But I want to credit them for making this change; especially when you're the biggest theatrical organization, to make such a huge turn when you're such a big bus and not tip over, because people are going to fall down on the inside!"

Of course, Harlem Duet was a natural choice for a Shakespearean festival, because its action takes place within the unwritten silences of Shakespeare's Othello. In Othello, a black man of high social rank is married to a white woman, whom he murders after being tricked into believing she's been unfaithful. Passing reference is made to a black woman in Othello's life. Sears picks up this thread of the narrative and builds a play about that woman, named Billie.

In a 2004 interview with Mat Buntin (available in full at the wonderful site www.CanadianShakespeares.ca), Sears talked about "one negative review of Harlem Duet where the reviewer spent a paragraph and a half talking about the white woman who didn't appear in the play, and I'm thinking, that's interesting, that's curious. Since the play isn't about white people I think that the review reflected her own discomfort with seeing herself as other, or not central to this story. So it must have been hard for her to relate to the protagonist, who was Black. Until recently, a lot of Canadian plays didn't really have Black people as the central or principal characters..."

In fact, there is actually a character in Harlem Duet named "Canada." In the same Mat Buntin interview, Sears commented that "The character Canada is in a way a reflection of Canadian identity. Historically, Canada has been known as a place of hope for escaping African slaves and freed Africans in the Americas. You know, we follow the North Star to Canada. However, the character Canada is portrayed in the play as flawed. You know, Billie's father, Canada, comes to Harlem, but he's unable to change her situation, he's unable to make things better for her."

Nonetheless, Sears told Buntin, "Even amidst the flaws and the criticisms I have of the country, it's the place where I choose to live; it's the place that has the most hope for me. There's a possibility of something here for me." A hope that's well demonstrated by the very fact of this upcoming production, which is evidence of great change in an important arts institution.

"Things are changing hugely at Stratford," Sears tells me. "They are starting to work with Canadian writers and do new work. What I feel coming from them is desire to change; a real desire to come into the 21st century."

The Stratford festival presents Harlem Duet from June 20 to September 22. For tickets and further information, call 1-800-567-1600 or visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.

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