Queer(y)ing Quaintness: Destabilizing Atlantic Canadian Identity Through its Theatre

Abstract

The Atlantic Canadian provinces (Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia) have long been associated with agricultural romanticism. Economically and culturally entrenched in a stereotype of quaintness (Anne of Green Gables is just one of many examples), the region continuously falls into a cycle of inferiority. In this thesis, I argue that queer theory can be infused into performance analysis to better situate local theatre practice as a site of mobilization. Using terms and concepts from queer geographers and other scholars, particularly those who address capitalism (Gibson-Graham, Massey), this research outlines a methodology of performance analysis that looks through a queer lens in order to destabilize normative assumptions about Atlantic Canada. Three contemporary performances are studied in detail: Christian Barry, Ben Caplan, and Hannah Moscovitch's Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, Ryan Griffith's The Boat, and Xavier Gould’s digital personality “Jass-Sainte Bourque”. Combining Ric Knowles' "dramaturgy of the perverse" (The Theatre of Form 1999) with Sara Ahmed's "queer phenomenology" (Queer Phenomenology 2006) allows for a thorough queer analysis of these three performances. I argue that such an approach positions new Atlantic Canadian performances and dramaturgies as sites of aesthetic and semantic disorientation. Building on Jill Dolan's "utopian performatives" (Utopia in Performance 2005), wherein the audiences experience a collective "lifting above" of normative dramaturgical structures, my use of "queer phenomenology" fosters a plurality of unique perspectives. The process of complicating normalizing tendencies helps dismantle generalizing cultural stereotypes.