Sharon Pollock, (19 April 1936 – 22 April 2021) was a Canadian playwright, actor, and director. She was Artistic Director of Theatre Calgary (1984), Theatre New Brunswick (1988–1990) and Performance Kitchen & The Garry Theatre, the latter which she herself founded in 1992. In 2007, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Pollock was one of Canada's most notable playwrights, and was a major part of the development of what is known today as Canadian Theatre.

Early years

Mary Sharon Chalmers was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, on 19 April 1936, to Eloise and George Everett Chalmers. Her mother had been a nurse prior to marrying her father, a prominent local physician and political figure. Sharon was raised in a family and time when appearances and family ties were extremely important; although her mother knew her father was unfaithful to her, she refused to leave him. Sharon had a younger brother, Peter Chalmers, who was born 19 October 1937. When Sharon was younger her parents often took her and her brother on trips, including to Banff, Vancouver, and through the U.S. She had exposure to large scale American musical theatre as the family traveled to New York, where she saw popular musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, and Oklahoma!

As a child, Pollock was not very interested in academics, but enjoyed reading, and at a young age developed a passion for history. She attended Charlotte Street Primary School and, for grades 9 and 10, Fredericton High School, where she was the president of the Drama Club. When she was in grade ten, she and a friend skipped school for three weeks straight to sneak into the local cinema and watch movies. When they were caught, Pollock's father sent her to King's Hall (Now Bishop's College School), an Anglican private school, because he believed that if she could skip school for three weeks and still get good grades, then there was no way her schooling was challenging enough. At this young age Pollock and the same friend, Jane Hickman, created "The Secret Two Club", for they both shared the desire to be writers, instead of housewives or teachers like the women around them. As well as her interest in drama and writing, Pollock was actively involved in the sports teams at King's Hall and was editor of the school magazine.

In Pollock's later teenage years her family began to fall apart. Her mother felt stifled in the role of housewife and was worn down by her husband's constant unfaithfulness. Eloise Chalmers committed suicide in 1954, when Pollock was 18. The same year, Pollock enrolled in the general arts program at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), where she was also an active member of the Drama Society. She met her future husband, Ross Pollock, at UNB where he was in his fifth year of the environmental forestry program.

The young couple eloped, and by 1956 they had their first child, Jennifer. In the same year they moved to Toronto, where they lived for the next eight years. During this time, the couple had four more children, Kirk (1957), Melinda (1959), Lisa (1961) and Michele (1963).

Pollock joined a theatre group in Toronto, directing a handful of high school kids (1962–63). She referred to this directing stint as "the blind leading the blind".

Ross openly abused his wife; Pollock admits attempting to kill him by grinding up high hormone level birth control pills and putting the powder into his food. This attempt at murder was unsuccessful. In 1964, after another violent physical attack by her husband, Pollock left Ross and returned to Fredericton with her five children. She hoped to be with her family, but it was not as she had left it. Her father had remarried and had two more children with his new wife.

Life in the theatre

Pollock's career in theatre began in 1964. Pollock was becoming frustrated with how even as an actor she rarely felt her voice was heard. She was tired of reproducing others' work and longed to hear a Canadian voice on stage. The way theatre was in those days, she felt that no one even wanted to hear a Canadian voice, or a Canadian story. Pollock's first work was Split Seconds in the Death of, a radio play that was broadcast on CBC on 22 November 1970. These were the days of radio, when a radio play drew a bigger audience than a theatre did. Already in this first script Pollock is pushing the boundaries of the realist narrative.

Career as a playwright

In 1971, Pollock wrote her first full-length play, A Compulsory Option, a dark comedy about three men whose paranoia might be realistic. It premiered in 1972 and was the first production by Vancouver's New Play Centre. It won an Alberta Culture playwriting competition. In November 1973 Pollock premiered her second full-length play Walsh at Theatre Calgary. In this play she dramatizes one of the most disturbing events in Canadian history, that of the injustices done to the Sioux Nation in 1877–1881. In Walsh, The Komagata Maru Incident and One Tiger to a Hill, Pollock examines historic events and tells them in a way that causes the audience to question the reality between the official story and what is shown on stage.

Throughout her career Pollock continued to use history, that of Canada, such as in Whiskey Six Cadenza (1983), Fair Liberty's Call (1993), or End Dream (2000); as well as her own personal history in plays such as Generations (1980), or Doc (1984) as fuel for her plays.

Blood Relations (1980) is one of Pollock's most well known and influential plays. It premiered at Theatre Three in Edmonton on 12 March 1980. Originally written as My Name Is Lisbeth which premiered at Douglas College,

Throughout Pollock's playwright career, her strong opinions about Canadian theatre motivated her to create a theatre of her own. She hoped to create a place for artistic talent to flourish and provide diversity. She wanted the Garry Theatre to be 'created by artists for artists.' Prior to the opening of the Garry Theatre, Pollock worked as the artistic director at Theatre Calgary in 1984 and 1985

Awards

  • Dominion Drama Festival Best Actress Award for The Knack (1966)
  • Alberta Culture Playwriting Competition for A Compulsory Option (1971)
  • Governor General's Award for Drama for Blood Relations (1981)
  • Golden Sheaf Award for The Person's Case, Television (1981)
  • Alberta Achievement Award (1983)
  • Chalmers Canadian Play Award for Doc (1984)
  • Governor General Award for Drama for Doc (1986)

See also

  • List of Canadian playwrights
  • List of writers from New Brunswick

References

Sources

Further reading

  • Anne Nothof, ed. Sharon Pollock: Essays on her Work, Guernica Press, 2000.
  • Craig Stewart Walker, "Sharon Pollock: Besieged Memory," The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition, McGill-Queen's UP, 2001.
  • Zimmerman, Cynthia. Sharon Pollock: Collected Works. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2005
  • Sharon Pollock entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20100604055940/http://www2.athabascau.ca/cll/writers/english/writers/spollock/spollock.php]
  • Interview on career as playwright by Theatre Museum Canada