How The Political And Social Changes In French Canadian Theatre

All modern French Canadian theatre has been created and influenced by the political and social changes of the province in the 20th century” How far do you agree that the statement is true concerning all modern French Canadian theatre?

The history of French Canadian theatre has always been the mix of tradition, politics and art. Especially In the 20th century there has been shifts socially and politically that directly affected the discourse of the arts in the province. According to Louise H. Forsyth (1981) the political drive in the arts not only from politicians but also practitioners helped to reaffirm “the vitality of the creative spirt in Quebec across time”. It could be debated how much influence did they have on the content of the

Politicians like Félix-Gabriel Marchand who was a part-time playwright encouraged the rise of original theatre in Quebec could be said to be the first movement for Quebec theatre which lead for the first professional theatre company in Montreal Théâtre National, founded in 1900 by Messrs. This in turn created a nationalist attitude of theatre in the early 20th century where theatre companies like Théâtre National had plays that where written, directed and performed by French Canadians. They encouraged this to the extent that they paid for playwrights to hand in their scripts; however, it was said that “Authors and members of the theatre community were enthusiastic about such an undertaking, although there seems to have been little public enthusiasm. The foreign import inevitably received public preference” (Forsyth 191). Proving that the political movements made a change to the progress of theatre in the early 20th century, and without this progress, Quebec would have not had a professional culture of theatre as the theatre would have been mostly