Eros at Breakfast was written by Robertson Davies in 1947 and championed by the Ottawa Drama League (later called the Ottawa Little Theatre) on an award-winning trajectory.
70 years ago, the Ottawa Drama League took one of playwright Robertson Davies’ earliest works to a world festival in Edinburgh. Davies went on to soar through the literary cosmos. History repeats itself. In 2020, the theatre is returning to Edinburgh with another original Canadian play.
BURN BABY, BURN!
In 1948, three years before the publication of his first landmark novel, Robertson Davies was already winning prizes for a play that was produced by the Ottawa Drama League.
Robertson Davies is known today as one of the great Canadian novelists and as an important playwright in the post-war period. In 1947, however, when he entered a play into the 9th annual National One-Act Playwriting Competition of the Ottawa Drama League (as OLT was known at the time), he was nothing but an obscure ex-journalist and academic. His play went on to take first prize in the competition. The ODL Workshop produced it for performance at the Little Theatre on 12 November 1947. On February 14 the following year, they took Eros at Breakfast to the Eastern Ontario Regional Drama Festival in Kingston and won the Fulford Shield for best production of a one-act play.
That was just the beginning. On 1 May 1948, Davies’ play won yet again at the national Dominion Drama Festival – hosted by the Ottawa Drama League for the first time since 1937 – for best production of a Canadian play. In fact, Eros at Breakfast was “the only Canadian play” to have survived the regional festivals. The adjudicator was enthusiastic, calling it “a very amusing piece of intellectual and theatrical high jinks – a very entertaining cocktail.”
Eros at Breakfast was a clever, witty send-up of university departments, the bureaucracy and Canadian culture. The EODL adjudicators praised the work for its originality, for the way it broke through the fourth wall – a very rare feature at the time – and for its grasp of tempo and teamwork. The play was certainly original for its day, involving an argument that takes place in the solar plexus of a 21-year-old man. The lurid backdrop for the production was a yawning stomach, and the cast represented various human faculties – for instance, the intellect and emotions – engaged in furious argument about the creative impulse. The adjudicator at the EODL called it “witty and really delightfully produced.”
There was more to come for this novice playwright, who by the end of his career had garnered virtually every award in sight, including the Order of Canada. In August 1949, the Dominion Drama Festival chose Eros at Breakfast to send overseas to the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1947, amid the slag heaps of post-war Britain, this global event had been conceived in a spirit of optimism, “to provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit.”
The Edinburgh International Festival had only two years under its belt when Eros at Breakfast went over to represent Canada in Scotland. The cast and crew in Ottawa had been “dazzled” by the opportunity and struggled frantically to raise money – they needed $6,000 – to take Davies’ award-winning play overseas. “They are all doing their part,” wrote a local journalist, “to see that Canada is well spoken of in Scotland this September.” They were successful in raising the money, and the Scottish performance took place on 5 September 1949.
While the work of orchestras and opera singers and some of the world’s foremost performing artists burgeoned on important stages in the noble city of Edinburgh, a more humble flowering took place, as it were, among the weeds at the roadside: this became what is now the Edinburgh Fringe. In 1947, eight small companies – six Scottish and two English – came to post-war Edinburgh and staged their shows in the shadow of the new and glossy international festival. These were independent companies, without backing or any umbrella organization to connect or support them. Nevertheless, their spontaneous presence was appreciated. Over the years since, their efforts have flourished and grown into a massive explosion of international creative talent. Today, over 3,000 shows are staged every year at 300 venues in Edinburgh in what is now the largest arts festival in the world.
History repeats itself. After seven decades, the Ottawa Little Theatre has resolved once again to throw its hat into the Edinburgh ring. It is taking another new work, called Burn, on the road to Scotland, this time to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The playwright, OLT’s own John Muggleton, has been an actor, director and writer for over 25 years and is the winner of many awards. He was also the co-founder of the Ottawa Acting Company and winner of the Audrey Ashley Award for long-term dedication to theatre in Canada’s capital. Burn is Muggleton’s first full-length play.
Burn – a highly suspenseful ghost story – was written and workshopped as a one-act play for and by the Avalon Studio in Ottawa. First staged in 2016, it was rewritten and expanded into a two-act play that premiered at the Gladstone Theatre in Ottawa the following year. Since then, it has been performed in Vancouver, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and on a number of Ontario stages. Along the way, it has generated six award nominations. Now, like Eros at Breakfast in its day, Burn is the OLT’s entry into the Eastern Ontario Drama League Festival. The EODL adjudication in Ottawa will take place on 28 March 2020, and the play will go on to Edinburgh in August.
“Part dark comedy, part psychological thriller, Burn is a ride,” says director Venetia Lawless. “I remember seeing it for the first time when it was being workshopped, and I was transfixed. I couldn’t tell what was happening. My mind was going everywhere, trying to figure out what was going on – until the end, when all was revealed with a really satisfying finish.”
Venetia Lawless, an actor and director who has literally grown up on stage and at the Ottawa Little Theatre, looks back at her theatre’s history and sees the power of community companies as catalysts for the development of actors and playwrights and the promotion of new, original talent. “I believe in this script and in John’s talent as a playwright. And I truly believe that one day, Burn will be included in the canon of Canadian ghost stories.”
The purpose of going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has not changed in 70 years. The cast and crew of Eros at Breakfast wanted “to honour” Canada and show the world what Canadians could do. Robertson Davies went on to be a literary ambassador from Canada to the world. Now, in 2020, it is John Muggleton’s turn.
With thanks to Jane Morris and Bob Hicks for their work on OLT’s online archives (ottawalittletheatre.com/ About Us/Past Productions).