The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

1989 at the Winnipeg International Women's
Festival. Erne, a so-called schizophrenic
who may or may not have attacked her husband,
speaks in a fragmented, stream-ofconsciousness
language weaving a
kaleidoscope picture of a woman struggling
to come to terms with the inhumanities of
our contemporary world largely created by
patriarchal forces. Images of nuclear warfare,
international military conflicts, multinational
commerce, alienating technology,
are juxtaposed with those of women
silenced and murdered by men, famine and
war stricken children, marching men and
mothers' tears.
Erne questions who is really mad ("they
say I am mad /1 say enola gay little boy fat
man") and tells the audience, "I say have
the courage to fear / I say the more boundless
the deed the smaller the / hindrance /1
say reality is surpassing imagination." In
the end, Getting It Straightbecomes one
woman's call for action addressed to all
women to work collectively to challenge
and defeat the violent and unconscionable
activities of patriarchal society. It is a powerful
and challenging play for actress and
audience alike.
What puzzles me about Heroines is
Doolittle's editorial choices and introductory
statements. She does not explain her
combination of two older, previously published,
plays and a much newer experimental
piece (separated by almost twenty
years), all by established Canadian playwrights.
For example, it might make more
chronological sense to include Pollock's
Blood Relations (1980).
It is also unclear what Doolittle means by
"heroines." Personal honesty and transformation
along with courage, intelligence
and creativity are cited in Doolittle's introduction
as important qualities in the
women of these plays. These qualities I can
understand. It is her opening remarks
which 1 find incongruent. Doolittle recalls
Carl Jung's theory that each individual has
both male and female characteristics, citing
this as the source of her "intuitive choice of
Heroines for the title of this collection." She
continues that "masculine and feminine
roles are more ambiguous and troublesome
today than ever before" and that "Each of
the principal characters in Heroines has
complicated mixtures of so-called masculine
and feminine attributes." These remarks
have little relevance to the plays except perhaps
Hosanna. Certainly, Doolittle's strange
remark that "The lack of an active, masculine
'other' may be one reason that Eme is
mad" is totally misguided and she continues
to use the term 'other' without explaining
its critical context.
In any case, perhaps Heroines's major
contribution lies in the questions it raises
about the nature and determination of
heroism as it applies to women. I must add
that I am grateful to Doolittle for making
widely available the poetic gem of Sharon
Pollock's Getting It Straight.
Daniel Maclvor's House Humans contains
a dramatic monologue, House, and a
collection of short quirky literary pieces
titled Humans. Maclvor's strength is in
story telling and in House, his character
Victor does just that. Angry and intense,
Victor tells us about the eccentric people
and relationships in his life. In exasperation,
he says: "My mother is possessed by
the devil, my father is the saddest man in
the world, my sister is in love with a dog,
the one I love does not love me and I got no
place to live."
The overall feel of the monologue, like
one of the lists in Humans, is a collection of
discreet snapshots of a chaotic life, which
the audience herself must order and make
meaningful. The language in vernacular
and the stories are a mixture of the comic
and the surreal. The themes are loneliness,
the absurdities of human relationships, and
the desire for love and happiness.
Interspersed within Victor's account of his
own life are short bittersweet stories on