Establishing our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism ed by Anton Wagner

Abstract

REVIEWS the introduction, notes, illustrations, and List of Works are, to­ gether, more than three times longer than the entire Atwood text, which consists of two short stories (530 and 750 words re­ spectively) and one forty-line poem. Some of the notes are quite helpful, especially concerning literary influences and allusions, but the unusual (for Atwood) fact that the protagonist of the first story is male receives no commentary. Ironically, this small sample of Atwood appears to be more accomplished as an ap­ prentice work than either Bronte’s or Laurence’s juvenilia— it makes one wish for more in this volume. WORKS CITED Chung, Kathy. “Co-editing Atwood’s Juvenilia: The Student Experi­ ence.” English Studies in Canada 24 (1998): 309-18. McMaster, Juliet. “Apprentice Scholar, Apprentice Writer.” English Studies in Canada 22 (1996): 1-15. Robertson, Leslie. “Changing Models of Juvenilia: Apprenticeship or Play?” English Studies in Canada 24 (1998): 291-98. BARBARA PELL / Trinity Western University Anton Wagner, ed. Establishing our Boundaries: EnglishCanadian Theatre Criticism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. 416. $60 cloth. Anton Wagner’s collection pioneers a new area — Canadian the­ atre reviewing, past and present, coast-to-coast. His long, dis­ cursive introduction states that the first theatrical notice in English appeared in Halifax in 1773 and that “regular theatre criticism” began with the Daily Leader in Toronto in the 1850s. The book tackles the following questions: Who were the writers of these reviews? What were their aes­ thetic, moral, sociological, political, and other orientations? How did the varied personalities and cultural backgrounds of these critics affect their perception of— and commentary on — theatre productions in their communities? What was 369 ESC 26, 2000 the specific chronological, geographic, and overall cultural and sociological context of the local theatre being observed? How were reviews contextualized by the very publications in which they appeared? And what can be learned from this cultural analysis over nearly two centuries about the devel­ opment of Canadian theatre and drama, past, present, and future? (14-15) In fact, few of the contributors directly answer these questions, and — if the volume does answer them — the reader has to do most of the work. Wagner makes a clarion call: “In the strug­ gle for the political survival of the nation, the arts in English Canada have been conspicuous by their silence” (48). This pre­ sumably explains his title: these critics defined a distance from Britain and the United States — or should have. Wagner and his colleagues trace not only the emergence of the profession of theatre critic but also Canada’s changing sense of itself over the last 175 years. The seventeen essays, nearly each one of which deals with one critic, are grouped under four chronological headings: editorcritics ; reviewer-critics; ‘cultural nationalism’; and ‘the post­ nationalist period.’ Readers will group the subjects differently: the well-known (the amiable Herbert Whittaker, the notorious Gina Mallet, the legendary Nathan Cohen); those known region­ ally (clever Christopher Dafoe in Vancouver, the quick-learning Irishman, Brian Brennan, in Calgary); and the obscure. The essayists inform and evaluate. Douglas Arrell concen­ trates on where theatre fitted in church-going, rapidly-growing W innipeg at the turn of the century. Don Rubin makes vari­ ous assertions about Cohen. He “probably took the art of the­ atre more seriously than any journalist in Canada” (237) and “almost single-handedly changed arts journalism in Canada” (246). Mayte Gomez shows how Oscar Ryan combines Marxism with a love of high art, with strong support for the Stratford Festival. Coping with two cities, three critics, and thirty years, the scholarly Patrick O ’Neill revives long-forgotten names in long-forgotten newspapers. Although E. R. Pankhurst reviewed in Toronto for nearly fifty years from 1876, Ross Stuart presents him as flat and bland and concludes that he “personified the close relationship that existed between the theatres and news­ 370 REVIEWS papers of small-town Toronto in the nineteenth century” (106). In Wagner’s two essays, he justifies B. K. Sandwell at Saturday Night as setting out clear views on aesthetics vs. social purpose and realities and possibilities in Canadian theatre. Lawrence Mason at the Globe travelled more widely in Canada...