"And what are you going to do for us?": Audition Pieces from Canadian Plays

Ian C. Nelson is Assistant Director of Libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan.

This is a laudable collection of distinctive selections from contemporary Canadian theatre in English or in English translation. The selections are neatly grouped in six sections by sex and general age category (the editors wisely eschewed any temptation to establish any further character breakdown). An index by playwright is included, and there is a commendable section entitled “Permissions and Publishers,” which reproduces the copyright information and includes publishers’ addresses: a sensitive and sometimes elusive issue when one is dealing with dramatic extracts. With each selection is an indication of the first production, a brief one- to three-line note of the character and/or situation, timing for the piece, and an editorial comment suggesting an approach to the speech or identifying the essential challenge of it and occasionally warning the auditioner of pitfalls.

The Canadian opus is now of sufficient professional credit and size that of course one could argue the inclusion or, more likely, the omission of certain potential audition speeches. The editors include, for instance, a passage for Tremblay’s transvestite Hosanna — with a wise caveat that “this speech should not be attempted without an awareness of the context” — yet none of the marvellous speeches for Tremblay’s acclaimed women. One might also pick up on the argument that it approaches folly to serve up to performers isolated passages as template audition material. From this point of view, “And what are you going to do for us?” deflects the inherent criticism of any anthology by the variety of its forty selections and also by the inclusion with each piece of a relatively complete capsule biography of the playwright. Compare the dozen or so complete plays with fairly lengthy introductions reproduced in Perkyns’ Major Plays of the Canadian Theatre (Toronto: Irwin, 1984) or in Plant’s The Penguin Book of Modern Canadian Drama (Markham, Ont.: Penguin, 1984) in which three are the same selections. Finally, one cannot but praise the introductory summary of advice to auditioners in the Simon & Pierre anthology: it is a model of succinctness and practical wisdom.