Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism

Abstract

This impressive volume is not, as the title might suggest, an anthology of reviews of Canadian theatrical productions, but a respectful (even reverential) study of those much-maligned chroniclers of the theatre scene – the critics themselves. Not for Anton Wagner and his collaborators the usual curt dismissal of newspaper reviewers as ignorant hacks. For Wagner, the best of these critics have functioned “as cultural healer[s] not only of local theatre institutions and their audiences, but also of [their] community at large by shaping and elevating the public’s artistic and moral taste” (Wagner 22). His aim is to record their “largely forgotten” contribution to the development of Canadian culture.