Joy Coghill on The Ecstasy of Rita Jo, Frances Hyland, and the Vancouver Playhouse (Part 4 of 9)
Channel: Canada's Theatre Museum
Date: 2011-06-10

Joy Coghill on the Ecstasy of Rita Jo, Frances Hyland, and the Vancouver Playhouse.


The Ecstasy of Rita Jo began as an idea that Malcom Black eventually offered to playwright George Ryga. The unfinished pages landed on Joy Coghill’s desk on her first day as the Artistic Director of the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company. Creative director Charles Evans and Coghill decided to mount the production as soon as possible. With less than a month to go Ryga sent a new outline that had lost the spirit and poetry of the original pages. Director, George Bloomfield, and Ryga spent two weeks reworking the play just in time for the first rehearsal. On opening night, the performance was so powerful there was no applause. Audience members just gradually left. The original cast included Frances Hyland, August Schellenberg and Chief Dan George.

The success of The Ecstasy of Rita Jo led to its remount, directed by David Gardner, as the inaugural performance of the studio theatre at the National Arts Centre in 1969. The performance was attended by all of the Canadian Premiers and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. After its Ottawa premiere, this pivotal piece in Canadian drama prompted a poignant question from Chief Dan George’s son: “It is going to work?”

Coghill was the first female Artistic Director of the Playhouse, staying in the position only two years because of conflict with the Board. Each member wanted something different and they were all uncomfortable with her choices. For example, she produced The Filthy Piranesi by William D. Roberts which featured two men kissing, and Grass and Wild Strawberries by George Ryga which depicted drug use.


Interviewed by R.H. Thomson on December 14, 2010 in Vancouver, B.C. Filming location courtesy of Performing Arts Lodges (PAL) Vancouver.