Shaw Directors Project: Songs of The International Brigades

Los Cuatro Generales (The Four Generals) – an anti-Franco song from The Spanish Civil War

by Michael Wheeler,

As mentioned in my last post, because Senora Carrar’s Rifles is atypically Aristotelean in its structure, Brecht recommends it be shown “with a documentary film showing the events in Spain, or with a propaganda manifestation of any sort.” Doing this at the actual performances would be nigh impossible for a number of reasons.

Online is a different story though, and I hope to post some relevant info about The Spanish Civil War in a way that relates to the piece between now and when we open on September 20th.

French members of the International Brigades

Early in the play, Senora Carrar’s house is passed by The International Brigades.  These were made up of volunteers from Western countries who wanted to stop the spread of Fascism in Europe and often paid their own way to join the fight against Franco. Orwell, Hemingway, and Jim Watts (the principal inspiration behind Praxis Theatre’s Jesus Chrysler) all went to Spain in the 30s to join the fight. Orwell would later write Homage To Catalonia about his experience, while Hemingway would pen For Whom The Bell Tolls.

The Canadian contingent were The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.  Canadians are one of the few contingents that don’t pass by the house in the play, but many other nationalities do, and each is identified by the song they are singing on the way to the front. In our production, all of the sounds are made onstage by Beau Dixon who acts as a drummer/foley artist/performer, so we took these songs and distilled them down to a few core rhythmic bars that are played on a snare drum as each brigade passes.

Due to the magic of YouTube, anyone can hear these songs now. If you have a favourite, let us know why.

German –Die Thälmann Kolonne

French – La Marseillaise

Polish – Warszawianka

American – Hold The Fort

Italian – Bandiera Rossa

Lately on the interweb

(l-r) Metcalf Arts Policy Fellow Shannon Litzenberger, Paul Gross, and Toronto Arts Council Executive Director Claire Hopkinson at The Canadian Conference of the Arts in Ottawa

by Michael Wheeler

Here’s a rundown of somewhat-related, hopefully interesting, and only partially self-serving, events and ideas that have been going around the internet lately:

• Over on The Arts Policy Diaries, Shannon Litzberger reports on Arts Day, organized by The Canadian Arts Coalition on Parliament Hill. Advocates took meetings with a number of Cabinet Ministers, while Shannon steered her X-wing straight for the main reactor to have an hour-long chat with Heritage Minister James Moore.
• Also in Ottawa, The Canadian Arts Coalition Canadian Conference of the Arts, organized a series of seminars on all things arts related. The big bombshell: CBC reports that the guy who compiled statistics for Richard Florida’s seminal works thinks it’s time to move past this whole “creative economy” idea, noting that leading policy makers to look at the arts as “dollars and cents…has been a trap”.
• “The insurgent… and uncategorizable”  Cathy Gordon and myself taught a workshop at University of Toronto last weekend titled, Producing and Creating Independent Theatre. More info soon on a non-U of T version available to everyone.
• The Siminovitch people have published Kim Collier’s acceptance speech and it is, well, here just read it. The Electric Company has already destroyed any reputation I have for objectivity on this website. Still, you should probably read it.
• Still bummed about the swath of uninspiring choices that presented themselves candidates for Toronto Mayor? Eye Weekly has a great piece on how a Ranked Ballot (RaBIT) could change the quality of candidate and tenor of debate next election.
• Speaking of which, Wrecking Ball #11: Now What? is coming to The Theatre Centre on December 6th, the evening before Toronto’s new City Council meets for the first time at City Hall. More details as they become available on The Wrecking Ball website.
• With the release of ex-US President George W Bush’s memoirs Decision Points, comes a new Facebook group dedicated to subversively taking the book and placing it in the crime section of bookstores. Don’t ya like it when things are funny cause they’re true?