bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Theatre In New Zealand
Authors: Carnegie David
Published: June 2023

The settlement of New Zealand did not begin in earnest until the 1840’s, and as this excerpt from Bruce Mason’s piece for solo theatre, The End of the Golden Weather, makes clear, to be a Victorian colony was to be subject to a much more orderly development than that experienced by Canada. Hardships there were for the early settlers, and eventually wars with the Maoris whose land they so legalistically filched, but on the whole it proved a productive country.
Henrik Ibsen On The Necessity Of Producing Norwegian Drama
Authors: Palmer John
Published: June 2023

CAUTION: Permission to perform this play must be obtained in writing from the author and royalties must be paid on every performance. Unauthorized reproduction of this script for any reason whatsoever is forbidden by copyright. The author may be contacted through Great North Agency, 345 Adelaide Street West, Suite 500, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R5.
A Man Was Killed: An Interview With Irving Layton
Authors: Layton Irving , Cohen Leonard
Published: June 2023

CAUTION: Permission to perform this play must be obtained in writing from the author and royalties must be paid on every performance. Unauthorized reproduction of this script for any reason whatsoever is forbidden by copyright. Inquiries should be sent to Irving Layton, c/o York University, 4700 Keele Street, Downsview, Ontario.
Alternate ROOTS
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

A dozen Southeastern alternative theatre companies convened in Sarasota, Florida, for the first Alternate ROOTS (Regional Organization of Theatres, South) Sharing Conference, held from December 27, 1976 to January 1, 1977. The purpose of the Alternate ROOTS gathering was to facilitate the exchange of information in vital areas such as touring possibilities, fund raising and performer training techniques. The companies also performed for the Sarasota public, free of charge.
Organizing The Fringe
Authors: Barrie Shirley
Published: June 2023

The ‘Fringe’ has been one of the few expanding areas in the English theatre over the last ten years, but during the last three, a noticeable change has taken place. It used to be assumed that ‘experimental’ groups worked for love rather than money and were, in any case, only using the Fringe as a stepping stone into mainstream theatre. Neither of these assumptions is any longer true. Many Fringe people have been working in the area for 5-10 years and have no intention of moving anywhere else. Also, a considerable number of them are now being paid Equity minimum wages or slightly above. This is still hardly a ‘living’ wage by national average standards but it’s a bit better than ten pounds a week and signing on at the labour exchange. In fact, in 1976/77 the amount of Arts Council subsidy given to Fringe groups increased by 91% over the previous year, while the overall increase to theatre was just over 30%.
English Comedy: Its Role and Nature from Chaucer to the Present Day
Authors: Rodway Allan , Berry Ralph
Published: June 2023

One hears on all sides of a crisis in academic publishing: manuscripts of quality mount up, contracts are revoked, list prices are ludicrous and sales collapse. I have re-assuring news for those depressed by this picture; there is still scope for the aspiring academic at all levels. As lately as 1975, Chatto & Windus brought out English Comedy: Its Role and Naturefrom Chaucer to the Present Day by Allan Rodway, and it is a lemon.
The Front: Contemporary Theatre And Its Language
Authors: Ryga George
Published: June 2023

It would be difficult and fruitless to address oneself to specific problems and qualities of contemporary Canadian theatre without reference to some framework which made contemporary theatre possible, and indeed necessary. The emergence of our contemporary theatre owes less to esoteric tradition than it does to political and economic realities outside the stage door.
Moving On: An Interview With John Wood
Authors: Wood John
Published: June 2023

John Wood came to directing via stage management and radio producing, tie trained as a pianist and for a short while as a dancer before attending Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec. He spent some time in England, acting and stage managing in small rep companies, then worked as a dresser at the Royal Shakespeare Company, observing productions by directors such as Peter Hall and Peter Brook. He has since directed all over Canada, including the classics, children’s shows, and new Canadian plays including The Collected Works of Billy the Kid at Stratford and later at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. In 1974 he succeeded Robert Sherrin as artistic director of the Neptune where a series of conflicts with the theatre’s board of directors led to Wood’s resignation from the post on March 28th of the current year. The board accepted the resignation on April 11th and barely a week later Wood was appointed as the artistic director of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre. John Wood was interviewed for CTR by Kate Lushington. He discusses the problems he faced at the Neptune, his plans for theatre at the NAC, and his hopes for the future of Canadian theatre.
Composing For The Theatre: Contemporary Directions
Authors: Morley Glenn
Published: June 2023

When one speaks of contemporary directions in the composition of music for the theatre, it becomes clear that the most important of these are closely connected to the invention of the tape-recorder. The impact of this machine has not been strictly limited to composers, for it has had the effect of leading all manner of individuals, such as writers and directors, to believe that by simply pushing a button, they have been imbued with the power of musical creativity. Increasingly, the economic factor has made the cost-wise producer feel that composers and musicians are an unnecessary expense, with magnetic tape being so cheap, and there being so many records available from which to choose. It is, therefore, useful to describe some of the more common problems encountered with music in an average production, before examining new patterns in the use of theatrical music.
Gravediggers Of 1942
Authors: Hendry Tom
Published: June 2023

Gravediggers of 1942 is dedicated to the men who were sent ashore at Dieppe, virtually unsupported, under-equipped, and ill-prepared, on the morning of 19th August 1942 unaware that their task was to fail in so shocking a manner that the Russians and the Americans who were then pressing for a second Front, would consent to a two-year postponement of D-Day. It is also dedicated to the German defenders of Dieppe to whose common humanity may be attributed the fact that the immediate death rate among those who participated in this suicidal mission was 25%, rather than the 100% it could easily have been.
Canadian Docu-Drama
Authors: Bessai Diane
Published: June 2023

The development of Canadian documentary drama has been apparent to those who follow dramaturgical trends for quite some time. In Edmonton this past season, the city’s main theatres presented three such scripts — Bethune at the Citadel, The Komagata Maru Incident at the Schoctor (the Citadel’s Second Stage) and Far As The Eye Can See at Theatre Three. In the following article, Diane Bessai examines these plays in an effort to determine their place in the growing canon of indigenous docu-drama.
The New Theatre Festival
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

The New Theatre Festival (TNT) overcame all odds against financing, the red tape wound round U.S. immigration and nightmarish bureaucratic entanglements, to this year become a genuinely international theatre event. Held at the University of Maryland’s Baltimore County campus, TNT presented 22 theatre groups and seven one-person shows, invited from all over the world. It also scheduled workshops, organized critical panels and held survival seminars in a hectic nine day program this past June.
The Need For A Mythology
Authors: Ryga George
Published: June 2023

On February 28, 1977, playwright George Ryga was in Surrey, British Columbia to deliver the keynote address in that city’s Canadian Literature Day celebrations. The following — which appears in print for the first time — is the text of his remarks made that day.
Northern Light: Eating Of The Audiences
Authors: DeFelice James
Published: June 2023

Lunchtime theatres in Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and London were examined in CTR’s Winter, 1977 issue. In Edmonton, there is another lunchtime company, the Northern Light Theatre, which has been busily producing plays in the city’s Art Gallery since June of 1975.
A Savage God Summer
Authors: Bell Wade
Published: June 2023

The theatre scene in Edmonton this past summer was a pleasant surprise. Returning from a year in Europe, I had expected to find the light and conventional summer theatre Edmontonians have long been used to. That was, of course, there. But what I found besides was a varied and interesting series of activities ranging from an experimental dance-drama to a series of readings of new scripts by western Canadian playwrights (using up to 30 professional and amateur actors). As well, there were one-man readings of poetry and prose and — the highlight for me — an electrifying performance of Arrabal’s Fando and Lis which 1 saw at the now defunct Hovel the night before wreckers stormed the building’s walls.
Building Miracles
Authors: Freed Forster
Published: June 2023

That interest in medieval theatre and drama has generally been restricted to the academic community is an ironic though hardly surprising fact. As a popular form of drama — one that is inextricably linked with the beliefs and customs of the communities from which it developed — there is no reason to expect medieval plays to successfully transplant to distant times and places. Nevertheless, these plays are rarely successful in a classroom or in the study, where their theatrical values are invariably obscured. Written for the stage, medieval scripts even more than Elizabethan plays require theatrical presentation to be fully appreciated. Indeed, the occasional revivals suggest that medieval drama can provide a moving experience for a contemporary audience. And at a time when the search for viable popular forms has engaged so many of our most dynamic theatre innovators, one might have expected a more wide-spread revival of interest (within theatre, not only academic, circles) in medieval plays and staging conventions. But that interest has, to date, failed to materialize, and on the whole the medieval theatre continues to be the concern of a small handful of scholarly specialists.
Making The Rounds
Authors: Close J. Herbert
Published: June 2023

A column of bits and snatches culled from here and there.
Nathan Cohen: The Making of a Critic
Authors: Edmonstone Wayne E. , Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Though historically rare, there have been a number of occasions when a critic of theatre towered above the theatre he himself wrote about. Horace was certainly one such; the German, Lessing, another. Both men castigated the state of theatre they saw around them and in doing so helped pave the way for a theatre of genuine meaning and commitment to come into being. Chronologically, it’s only a short time between the critical work of Horace and the appearance of Seneca, Rome’s most important tragedian and a dramatist whose work later served as the inspiration for even greater tragedians including Shakespeare. Lessing, certainly the first theatre critic in any sort of modern sense, wrote about the kind of theatre that he was hoping to bring into being himself — an important bourgeois drama. Again, it is only a short step from Lessing’s work to the greater dramatic flowering of Germany in the works of such men as Schiller and Goethe.
Aside
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

With this issue, the Canadian Theatre Review commences its fifth year of commitment to the idea that theatre in Canada should reflect, first of all, Canadian concerns. In most countries, such a position would be considered rather conservative. Unfortunately, in contemporary Canada such a position is considered radical and revolutionary, a mad dream held to by those who cannot “make it” in the world of the classics or who are too narrow-minded to understand the meaning of the term “international”. These charges, sad to say, come not so much from the broad segment of society at-large but from within our national theatrical establishment including those who control the purse-strings of our theatres and who continue to fund theatrical activities which tend to take from Canada more than they give.
The Coe Report (II)
Authors: Juliani John
Published: June 2023

As was probably obvious from CTR 17, the recent appointment of Peter Coe as artistic director of the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton caused controversy not only in Alberta but right across the country. One person who remained notably silent during the initial controversy was actor-director John Juliani who, as a newcomer to Edmonton, hesitated to become directly involved. But by December of 1977, Juliani felt that the real issues were being either obscured or ignored and he wrote a lengthy letter to the editor of the Edmonton Journal about the appointment. Because of its length, only excerpts from that letter were published. Shortly thereafter, Juliani made copies of the full text and handed them out for several nights to people attending performances at the Citadel. Because the letter not only reveals the thinking of one of this country’s major theatre artists but also puts the entire Coe controversy into a significant perspective, it seemed appropriate here to publish the full text so that theatre people both in Canada and abroad could decide for themselves the merits of the issue. The letter, for the record, was addressed to the editor of the Edmonton Journal and is published here with Juliani’s permission.
Theatre For The Young: Happy Un-birthday Words
Authors: Doolittle Joyce
Published: June 2023

Professional theatre for children in Canada will be 25 years old in 1978. The continuing growth in the number of companies and the expansion of repertoire, particularly in new plays, is an encouraging and optimistic sign. The high rate of attrition in companies, the general level of playwriting for the genre and the low regard in which work for young people is held within theatrical circles is a cause for deepest pessimism — not only about theatre for young people, but about the attitude of contemporary society toward children and childhood altogether.
Mermaid Theatre: The Mythic Dimension
Authors: Smyth Donna E.
Published: June 2023

Ulgimou, a Micmac chief, pursues his dead son’s soul to the Spirit World. He gambles with the Chief of Spirits and wins not only his son’s soul but seeds of corn and tobacco for his people. Triumphantly carrying the soul in a pouch, he returns to the tribe. But in the midst of his dance of celebration, he hands the pouch to an old woman. She wants to see the soul. She opens the pouch. The soul escapes and can never be won again.
When Canada Went Wilde
Authors: O’Neil Peat Louisa
Published: June 2023

In May of 1882, English poet and playwright Oscar Wilde toured North America visiting Canada toward the end of the month. He lectured on home decoration, art history and design theory not out of any obvious love for the new world but for money, always in short supply in the homes of art lovers. To support his lifestyle and fulfill his psychic needs, touring America was necessary. Audiences, adulation and cash was the magic formula that sent Oscar packing.
Lord Alfred’s Lover
Authors: Bentley Eric
Published: June 2023

And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to life. People must adopt some attitude toward me, and so pass judgement both on themselves and me. — Oscar Wilde Je schwerer sich ein Erdensohn befreit Je mächtiger rührt er unsere Menschlichkeit. (The harder it is for a son of earth to free himself, The more powerfully he touches our humanity.) — C.F. Meyer
Brook’s Ubu
Authors: Trilling Ossia
Published: June 2023

“Peter Brook’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord” wrote the journalist Tom Sutcliffe in The Guardian on January 24, 1978, “is a folly”. Which of the two definitions, the English or the French one, did he have in mind in using thi s rather apt description? Clearly, if a folly is the old term for a place where a single-minded indi vidual can indulge his personal fancies, the word fits the case well enough. The former “Centre Internat ional des Recherches Theatrales”, hence its acronym CIRT, but now renamed “Centre International des Creations Theatrales” was the realisation of an old dream, made possible by the generosity of a farsighted French Ministry of Culture five years or so ago and born in the throes of creative work undertaken partly at the behe st of Jean-Louis Barrault, who had been entrusted with the fortunes of the tottering Theatre des Nations in Parisjust before its demise in 1968, and then, after a spell in the Malrovian wilderness, given a chance by Andre Malraux’s successor to rehabilitate both himself and his charge in the early 1970’s
Just An Actor: Italy Two Interviews
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

In previous interviews in this series, CTR has looked at acting conditions in France and Sweden. The following interview — conducted by free-lance writer Jennifer Merin — extends that study to Italy and focuses on two actors. The first, Giancarlo Mauri, is one of Italy’s top actors. A member of the renowned Teatro Piccolo Di Milano for 22 years, Mauri was active in the battle for actor’s rights early on. The second, Patrizia Sacchi, has only been working professionally for the past four years and has been a member of the union for only two. The interview was conducted in Italy this past September.
A Biographical Checklist
Authors: Alianak Hrant
Published: June 2023

Born on February 5, 1950 in Khartoum, Sudan, of Armenian parents. Father in sales business. Childhood and adolescence spent in Khartoum. Excels in school, completing high school requirements in less time than usual. At the age of 15, enrols in University of Khartoum to study Business Administration for one year. In 1967 family moves to Montreal so that Alianak can continue his studies at McGill University. Spends one year in an Economics program. Already fluent in Arabic, English, and Armenian, gains proficiency in French language. Family moves to Toronto in 1968, and he enrols in York University’s night school as an English major. In the next four years holds various positions during the day including mail delivery, factory and office jobs. At this time he also develops an interest in the theatre which leads to technical and acting work with several small theatre groups. Because his experience in theatre is limited at this point, he decides to study acting with Eli Rill. After two years of training, he works briefly in the professional theatre, including a role in Theatre Passe Muraille’s production of Dog in The Manger. Realizing that the hectic pace and insecurity of an actor’s life is not for him, he tries his hand at playwriting. A professional production of Tantrums, the first play he writes, convinces him to pursue writing as a career. After Tantrums in 1972, Alianak decides that he would like to direct all his own plays. As an entry into the field, he directs five of his short plays — Western, The Violinist And The Flower Girl, Mathematics, Brandy, and Christmas — at various small theatres in the city, on a production budget of $10 per play. In 1973 he becomes a Canadian citizen. In 1974 a volume of his plays is published, and interest in his work is shown in other parts of the country. In 1976 his play The Blues is produced in Petrolia, Ottawa, and Vancouver. A movie fan for most of his life, he begins to describe his plays as “shorts” or “full-length features”. Through 1978 he remains in Toronto working on various commissions mostly from the alternative theatres.
Passion and Sin: A full-length feature
Authors: Alianak Hrant
Published: June 2023

© 1976. Hrant Alianak. Permission to perform this play or scenes from it must be obtained in writing from the author, and royalties must be paid on every performance. Unauthorized reproduction of this script for any reason whatsoever is forbidden by copyright. Performance permission may be obtained by writing to Great North Agency, 345 Adelaide Street West, Suite 500, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R5.
Ibsen At 150
Authors: Beaupre Therese
Published: June 2023

Although he is one of the three most frequently produced playwrights in the English language theatre today, Henrik Ibsen was, in his own time and his own country, shockingly ignored. After years of writing plays which were misunderstood, often booed off the stage, the great Norwegian playwright was forced to hire himself out writing poetry for all occasions — at one point his verse celebrated the anniversary of a rifle club. It was not until he was 36 did Ibsen achieve any recognition in Norway, and by then the playwright had made the decision to go into voluntary exile abroad, a phase of his life which was to span 27 years and in which all but four of his great plays were written.
Subscribe Now
Authors: Newman Danny , Buck Douglas L.
Published: June 2023

“I have been associated in my career with two foundations which have had real impact upon the performing arts . One was the Ford Foundation. The other was a one-man foundation in the person of Danny Newman. No third foundation to this date has put as much financial stability into theatres, symphonies, operas and dance companies.” With this personal tribute in the foreword to Subscribe Now!, W. McNeil Lowry expresses the warmth felt by so many of Newman’s colleagues across North America, Australia and Great Britain . Danny Newman is the Director of Public Relations at Chicago’s Lyric Opera as well as subscription consultant to hundreds of arts organizations.
Cultural Politics
Authors: Hay Peter
Published: June 2023

To some it might not come as a surprise that Canada has no national cultural policy. It took major international upheavals to alert us that we had no national energy policy. There has been relatively little discussion — except in emotional terms — about the recent emergence and the long-term impact of cultural nationalism in Canada. Not one of the three or four major political parties on the federal scene have a platform on cultural policy. Apparently the NDP is thinking about drafting one. If so, it may have been shamed into it by the strongstance which has been consistently taken by the Committee for an Independent Canada. The CIC has had the advantage of two nationalistic publishers at the helm: Jack McClelland and Mel Hurtig. And it was publishing that received most attention from the Ontario government’s Royal Commission on Economic and Cultural Nationalism. But it does not take a special interest group to perceive that foreign control of our economy produces fallout in the social an< cultural sectors as well: these problems are rooted in the same soil What has not been adequately realized either by politicians or the public is that nationalism is a cultural phenomenon, long before it blossoms politically, let alone bears its sometimes poisonous fruit How fast this maturation is completed and how edible the fruit turns out to be depends largely on the nation’s self-confidence, self awareness, though also on international forces and events.
Cultural Senility: Funding Patterns
Authors: Pasquill Frank T.
Published: June 2023

Canada’s cultural health is threatened by sclerosis of the funding system. The prognosis is not good. We hobble along the road to mediocrity waiting for the final paralyzing stroke. We bring in foreign specialists to feel our pulse and take blood samples. Behind closed doors politicians, civil servants, and funding officials huddle in conference preparing one ancient elixir after another. Physician, heal thyself! As bureaucratic arteries harden, our cultural epitaph is being written, “Democratization”, “Decentralization”, “Unity through Diversity”, “Rest in Peace”. We suffer from feasting on an expensive imported culture, and reject a natural diet that better suits our constitution. Canadian content could be prescribed in large doses and an operation performed to bypass channels plugged with cultural cholesterol, but unless support reaches our remote creative artists, the symptoms will persist : poor circulation, cold extremities, and an inability to think for ourselves.
Vancouver
Authors: Soule Donald
Published: June 2023

Considering that it is one of the oldest and best theatres in Canada, the answer is a little surprising. But — considering that 1) it has had little to do with other theatres (even in Vancouver), 2) it’s stuck out on the Ivory Coast (the Point Grey campus of U.B.C.) and 3) it has generally pleased but seldom startled its audiences (much less anybody else), the answer is less surprising.
Creating The Impossible
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

When the Canadian Theatre Review was first proposed, the idea was greeted with much skepticism. Would there be enough material to till a hundred-page issue four times a year? Would the profession support and participate in a journal of this type? Would there be interest in a Canadian theatre journal outside the country? Would it be financially viable?
The Tradition of Modern Theatre in Japan
Authors: Kaitarō Tsuno , Goodman David G.
Published: June 2023

Western-style modern theatre has already become a tradition in Japan. In the following article, critic and director Tsuno Kaitarō examines why Western theatre managed such a strong foothold in the last 80 years. He then suggests a number of fascinating reasons why many Japanese theatre artists in the last decade have begun to attempt to transcend this Western influence by tapping not only their own imaginations but their own history and traditions as well.
Censorship in Montreal
Authors: Sabbath Lawrence
Published: June 2023

In May of this year when the contretemps first became public, it seemed that the Greater Montreal Council of the Arts and the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde were the sole parties locked in a bitter struggle touching on censorship and the freedom of playwrights and producers, a battle that could be so critical as to set the future pattern for the entire funding process in Quebec and to perhaps cause grants bodies elsewhere to reassess their attitudes and funding procedures. Now it appears the Council is at loggerheads with the entire theatre community and its intransigent actions may have created a backlash movement it will be unable to control..
Alberta’s Populist Alternative
Authors: Filewod Alan
Published: June 2023

Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre may well be keeping an eye on New York these days but the fact is that the city’s smallest professional theatre has already beaten them there. Recently. Edmonton’s minimally-budgeted Theatre Network, which, as writer Alan Filewod says in the following article, “is probably the closest thing Alberta has to a true alternate theatre”, opened a production at Richard Schechner’s off-off-Broadway Performance Garage in Manhattan. Entitled Hard Hats and Stolen Hearts, the production provided CTR with a unique opportunity to examine not only Network’s brief history but to look as well at the larger issues of collective production and collective creation.
Stratford’s Summer of ’78
Authors: Green Joseph G.
Published: June 2023

If Stratford’s 1977 anniversary season of 10 productions appeared bold and somewhat presumptuous, then the Festival’s 1978 season, under Robin Phillips’ artistic direction, of 16 productions (plus an opening Gala) must be seen as an act of either sheer folly or supreme confidence. Either way, the attempt at this marathon offering to some god or other, had at best mixed results: a season of spotty quality and the departure of Mr. Phillips for sabbatical leave after a serious operation.
Cinq Pieces En Un Acte
Authors: Simard André , Rièse Laura
Published: June 2023

The five plays included in this collection are not all of the same calibre. They are scenes encountered in everyday life with no provocation and no real political context. Some of the titles are parodies of plays by well-known writers such as En attendant gaudrault and la mort d’un pigeon voyageur. Simard wants to make us laugh or cry, to draw from us ordinary reactions. He pokes fun at many people, at the boss who takes unfair advantage of his workers and blames them. The provoked men will however take their revenge as we see in gaudrault, The turnabout is done in a humourous way with a quick exchange of words.
Notes From A Journal (1974-1976): On Returning Home
Authors: Richardson Alan
Published: June 2023

Alan Richardson is a writer and director who, like many Canadians, decided to leave the country after years of frustrating struggles trying to make a living from his work. Unlike many others, though, he did not head for the United States or England but rather to Ireland. On his arrival there, he made contact with people at the world-famous Gate Theatre and it was at the Gate that he worked for several years in different artistic and administrative positions. Yet something in him always felt foreign’ and he knew that in order to find himself as an artist he had to come ‘home.’ His return in 1974 was not exactly greeted with fanfare but he did find work — at Ken Gass’s Factory Theatre to begin, where he worked as a dramaturg; and later at Theatre Compact which he helped to found. The following impressions of the scene then and now eloquently reflect the growth and change in our theatre and in the thinking of one Canadian theatre artist.
Canadians at the O’Neill
Authors: Hay Peter
Published: June 2023

This past summer, a group of 16 Canadian theatre people participated in the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s much praised National Playwrights Conference. The group was brought to the O’Neill under the sponsorship of the Canadian Theatre Review and with the financial support of the Department of External Affairs, the Ontario Ministry of Culture, the Floyd S. Chalmers Foundation, Imperial Oil of Canada, the Ford Foundation of New York, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of Portugal, York University and other private and public agencies. The goal was not to “learn” from the American experience as much as it was to analyze what made the O’Neill the world s most successful script development centre. The Canadian contingent participated in all aspects of the O’Neill operation from playwriting (Michael Cook and Beverley Simons) to administration (Susan Feldman of the Canadian Guild of Playwrights) to dramaturgy (Peter Hay and Don Rubin) to performance (Edward Atienza, Denise Fergusson, Kenneth Welsh, Bill Meilen, Ken Kramer, Sue Kramer, John Juliani, John Horton and Brenda Donohue) to technical support (Mimi Mekler and Suzanne Jones). Other Canadians worked at the O’Neill as well, although not officially part of the delegation. These included actress Gale Garnett and director Sheldon Larry. In the following essay, Peter Hay, editor of Vancouver’s Talonplays, articulates what the experience meant to him and what he believes it could mean for the Canadian theatre.
Biographical Checklist
Authors: Mitchell Ken
Published: June 2023

Born on 13 December 1940 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Spends his early life and adolescence in and around the family farm. In 1961 he decides to spend a year in England. When he returns, he enrolls in the English program in the University of Saskatchewan where he is awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. While at the University, he begins to have his short stories published in various Canadian magazines and journals and some are read on CBC radio. At this same time, he begins writing radio plays for CBC and these are broadcast on both the regional and national networks. In 1967, he is awarded an M. A. in English by the University of Saskatchewan and later that year he joins the English Department at the University of Regina as a faculty member. In 1970, he writes his first stage play. Heroes which wins first prize in a playwriting competition in Ottawa. He later spends time travelling in Britain, Holland and Greece. Shortly thereafter he tries his hand at acting and performs at folk festivals with the country and western band, Humphrey and the Dumptrucks with whom he writes the musical, Cruel Tears. In 1978, his play, The Shipbuilder wins first prize in the University of Regina Drama Department’s playwriting competition. He remains on the faculty in the English Department teaching courses in Canadian Literature and Creative Writing.
On Being A Playwright in Ottawa
Authors: Doucet Clive
Published: June 2023

Clive Doucet is the only Ottawa-born and bred playwright ever to have a play of his put on at the National Arts Centre — Hatching Eggs. That makes Doucet a rare breed and as his career has progressed (he recently published a comic novel called Disneyland Please) he has begun to understand just how rare. People look at him strangely. People shout at him in hushed tones. Journalists shy away from him in droves. What is it like being a playwright in Ottawa? We asked Clive to comment.
English Theatre and Quebec Culture
Authors: Laurin Camille
Published: June 2023

What is the attitude of the Quebec government to English-language theatre organizations in the province? For two years now — since the election of René Levesque’s Parti Québécois — many have been asking just that question and wondering both publicly and privately about the long-term relationship of Anglophone art to Francophone cultural controls. A number of statements on the subject have, of course, been made in the past but none so clear — or so apparently supportive — as that made recently by Camille Laurin. Quebec’s Minister of Cultural Affairs. Written originally in response to a request by Montreal’s major English-language company, The Centaur, and appearing originally in the Centaur’s 10th anniversary souvenir program, the statement carries with it obvious political significance. It is reprinted here with the permission of both the Centaur and Dr. Laurin’s office. In a fairly brief span of time, the Centaur has become an important part of Quebec’s cultural scene. Montreal, with its large English-speaking population, needs such a theatre. It is true, the English-speaking community is well endowed with cultural institutions. It has its own cinemas, television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, social clubs and so on; in this respect, it is infinitely more fortunate than French-speaking communities in other parts of Canada.
Toronto’s Alternates: Changing Realities
Authors: Gass Ken
Published: June 2023

If one swallow doth not a summer make, then one might easily say in response to Don Rubin’s recent prognosis in these pages (that Alternate Theatre in Toronto is dying — CTR 20) that one lame production of Julius Caesar doth not a general malaise make. There’s a cliché in the theatre that you’re only as good as your last show, which explains as well as anything why some theatres are regularly described as failing or floundering if they haven’t had a recognizable hit in recent months. And by the same token, theatres like the Factory and Theatre Passe Muraille who have had the privilege of reading their own obituaries in the entertainment columns, are this season said to have revived, their public image buoyed by a single successful production (Lucky Strike at the Factory, Les Maudits Anglais at Passe Muraille). In truth, the death knell has sounded over the Alternate Theatre movement every two or three years for the past decade.
The Wroclaw Festival
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Alternate theatre is not, of course, limited to the North American continent. Such theatres exist in virtually every theatre country in the world including central and South America, the democratic countries of western Europe, the socialist countries of eastern Europe and Japan. The term “alternate” itself tends to be used only in Canada. In the States, the term is the more grammatical, Alternative. Beyond North America, these companies tend to call themselves independent theatres, tree theatres, café theatres or open theatres. The latter term — Open Theatre — has been most popularized internationally by Boguslaw Litwiniec, the director of a festival of Open Theatre held every two years or so in Wroclaw, Poland, home of Jerzy Grotowski. Some years back, Litwiniec even wrote a book on the subject in which he set forth what he felt to be the 21 basic principles of Open — that is, alternative — art. In it, he suggested that Open art
Tenjo-Sajiki: Liberating Daily Life
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

In Japan, director-playwright-critic Shuji Terayama is a rather controversial figure, not only for what he does with his experimental and socially-oriented theatre company Tenjo-Sajiki but for his active encouragement of Japanese young people to break away from families, classrooms and certain lifestyles. American actress Jennifer Merin, a frequent contributor to CTR, had the unique opportunity of working with Terayama and his company for nearly a year. In this piece, she looks closely at the relationship of this company to its society and relates how those perceptions become a significant part of the work.
The Sand: A Play
Authors: Czerniecki Marion Andre
Published: June 2023

The events of this play are seen through the eyes of a small boy. They should be enacted with great economy of feeling and movement, it is only the essence that counts.
Canadian Theatre Publishing
Authors: Friedlander Mira
Published: June 2023

Perhaps more upsetting than the state of Canadian book publishing is this country’s lamentable state of theatre publishing. Though our book publishers have many grave problems in reaching a largely uninformed public, our theatre publishers seem for a large part not even to exist. And yet exist they do, for those few who have had the time and energy to discover their cramped and inadequate spaces, tucked away for the most part in the less affluent areas of our cities. Indeed, we also have many notable playwrights, and their plays are available in print through the hard and sometimes ungratifying work of such enterprises as Lemeac, Aurore and VLB in Quebec, Talon in British Columbia, Simon and Pierre, Playwrights Co-Op and CTR Publications in Ontario, to mention only a few. The problems of these publishers are many and varied, yet a majority of their complaints unify them in their attempt to bring to the public an art form as old as history itself, and as largely ignored. In speaking to them one hears of money problems, the government’s lack of interest in their plight, slights by the media, the vastness of a country which presents unique promotion and distribution problems, and bookstores who cannot see the monetary reward of ‘Canadiana’.
The Playwright: Who Cares?
Authors: Baldridge Mary Humphrey
Published: June 2023

The following is the complete text of a talk given this past December in Edmonton by Calgary playwright Mary Humphrey Baldridge. Given at the Edmonton Art Gallery in conjunction with a workshop production of a new play under the joint auspices of Theatre 3 and Northern Light Theatre Company, it is reprinted here with Ms. Baldridge’s permission.
Dramatic Stock Down East
Authors: Phillips Fred
Published: June 2023

H. Price Webber, and all the members of his once-famous Boston Comedy Company, did much to popularize dramatic stock ‘Down East’. Maybe the plots were a little obvious, the acting not always marked by ‘admirable restraint’. Still the sweet simplicity of the whole thing did touch folk whose lives were measured by the depth of the winter snow, the mating habits of the Fundy cod and the number of board feet a pine log would scale.
Ines Peree Et Inat-Tendu
Authors: Ducharme Réjean , Rièse Laure
Published: June 2023

Unpredictable, such is the appellation best suited to define Ducharme. This play resembles no other. From the beginning, we enter into a comical world full of surprises. A mixture of clear sightedness, lyricism, wisdom, foolishness and humour. The names of his characters are fractured, unusual, impossible to translate because in themselves they represent a sort of game between young and old people. Ducharme’s greatest asset is the novelty of his language, his dexterous manipulation of words becoming images, but images of his unique creation. His people are not conventionally dressed and seem to be gathered in a strange dwelling which could be a funeral chamber, a mental asylum, a convent or house of ill-fame. What does it matter? As in most of Ducharme’s books we find a kind of children’s world unfolding in unusual places and confronted by adults. He adds also animals, birds, odd objects, here a cardboard butterfly, a violin, stones. The young ones live in frenzied dreams, far away countries while the grownups confront them with cruelty, stupidity and evil doings. It is a theatre of questions, hesitations, exclamations. It is a verbal flux of incoherences, upside down cliches, pertinent accusations, variations and elliptic disorders. But beneath what seem foolish utterances we detect fundamental truths and essential tasks, hidden under a proliferation of ideas thrown haphazardly. In the midst of this imagery the two young people must stick together, they need each other in life as in death.
Think Again: A Comedy in Three Acts
Authors: Joudry Patricia
Published: June 2023

© 1970. Patricia Joudry. Permission to perform this play or scenes from it must be obtained in writing from the author, and royalties must be paid on every performance. Unauthorized reproduction of this script for any reason whatsoever is forbidden by copyright. Performance permission may be obtained by writing to Patricia Joudry Steele, St. Agnes de Dundee, Huntington Co., Quebec JOS 1LO.
Light: Black to Black
Authors: Neil Boyd
Published: June 2023

Canadian Greg Light wrote to Tom Stoppard recently demonstrating some of the images that could be conceived from the titles of their latest plays—Stoppard’s Night and Day and Light’s Black to Black. Light expressed his disappointment that Stoppard’s name was inappropriate to the homogeneous relationship of the five words ‘night’, ‘black’, ‘black’, ‘day’, ‘light’. Light takes his words seriously and Stoppard is a master of the English language. But they have a further tenuous, although more fortunate, connection. Twelve or 13 years ago Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was ‘discovered’ at the Edinburgh Festival. At last year’s Festival, Canadian poet/playwright/actor Greg Light’s Black to Black won a ‘Fringe First Award’, one of only 13 such awards in a field of 200 theatre performers.
Where to Begin the Accusation
Authors: Tremblay Michel
Published: June 2023

The following interview was done with Michel Tremblay in Montreal in June of this year. The interview was conducted for CTR by Renate Usmiani.

CTR: You’ve just finished a new play, L’Impromptu d’Outremont. Could you talk a little about it?
Biographical Checklist
Authors: Tremblay Michel
Published: June 2023

The following biographical checklist was prepared especially for CTR by D. W. Russell, Department of French, University of Waterloo.
There Goes Newton, Here Gomes Newton
Authors: Page Malcolm
Published: June 2023

Christopher Newton has decided to leave the Vancouver Playhouse this year after six years as its artistic director. Newton’s new job will be to revivify Ontario’s Shaw Festival, a theatre that had been run for many years by Newton’s own predecessor in Vancouver, Paxton Whitehead. What will Newton do at Shaw? Obviously the two theatres are very different but some possible hints may come from studying Newton’s track record in Vancouver. We asked critic Malcolm Page to prepare just such a look for us and we offer it to you as a perhaps hint of the future.
Blyth Spirits: from Calico to Canadian Drama
Authors: Beaupre Therese
Published: June 2023

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, there was a cartoon depicting one of those perfectly typical institutions of rural America: the country general store. With the perennial town idlers loitering on the porch, the vision was one of calico, licorice and sassafras. Above this quaintly idyllic establishment hung a large sign reading ‘General Store and County Centre for the Performing Arts.‘
Ringwood’s Saskatchewan Mirage
Authors: Slocan South
Published: June 2023

In general, CTR does not publish reviews of individual productions because of both space and deadline problems. In the case of Gwen Pharis Ringwood’s latest play, Mirage, however, premiered this past May at the University of Saskatchewan, we have decided to make something of an exception. Why? First, the play seems to have the makings of a potential box office success and it seemed a good way to alert potential producers. Second, a major new play by a writer who has been working steadily since the 30’s, seems to warrant some special attention just on its own. The following report was written for us by Quebec freelance writer Michael Benazon who attended the Saskatoon premiere.
Of Fortune and The Director’s EGO
Authors: Kramer Mary D.
Published: June 2023

The theatre is, without doubt, a complex art form, one which requires the talents of innumerable people who do innumerable things under innumerable titles. Perhaps the vaguest title in the theatre, though, is that of ‘Assistant to the Director’, a position so subject to the caprices of fortune and the Director’s ego that simply trying to define it could easily make one suspect for immediate commitment. In case one doubts the veracity of this statement, however, CTR, as a public service, offers the following report by one ‘Assistant to the Director’ who learned the hard way in, you should excuse the expression, a semi-professional production.
Approaching King Lear: Excerpts From a Rehearsal Diary
Authors: Good Maurice
Published: June 2023

At a Toronto press conference in October, Stratford Festival Artistic Director Robin Phillips outlined his vision of internationalism for Stratford (see in this issue’s Carte Blanche section A Cry for Reform). But this has been a reality for several seasons at the Festival in the form of visiting international ‘stars’ to complement the Canadian company, the most recent import being Peter Ustinov.

In the follow ing excerpt from a rehearsal diary he kept, Maurice Good—a fine Irish actor in his own right transplanted here and a member now of the Stratford company—gives some personal insights (from his unique vantage point as Ustinov’s understudy) of the practical theatre pro cesses behind Phillips’ vision on the opening days of rehearsal; days—by the way—which themselves were ominously clouded with the memory of the prev ious weekend’s tornado which tore through Ontario towns less than 50 miles from Stratford.
Biographical Checklist
Authors: Walker George F.
Published: June 2023

Born August 23, 1947, in Toronto. After graduation from high school, he tries his hand at short story writing and poetry. He makes his debut as a playwright at the age of 23 after seeing an announcement that a new theatre—Toronto’s Factory Theatre Lab—was looking for Canadian plays. He writes a two character piece, Prince of Naples and submits it. From this point on he is closely associated with the Factory which produces all of his early plays. In 1971 he receives the first of five Canada Council grants which allow him some measure of financial security while pursuing a career as a full-time playwright. A painfully shy and private individual, he says that he has always had ‘a love-hate’ relationship with theatre and feels ‘it has to be changed a lot.’ As a playwright, he says his work—if it has a common theme—is obsession, ‘obsession almost as a way of coping with life and surviving.’
Rumours of Our Death
Authors: Walker George F.
Published: June 2023

A Jarry-esque allegory of man’s incoherence towards man, of a mythical country’s incoherence towards its mythical people, of a not-so-exotic world’s incoherence towards itself. An allegory of national diseases (such as talking to yourself, and applying for government grants to make the revolution). Rumours of Our Death is that rarity in our national dramaturgy—a marvellously-mad, cosmic Canadian comedy.

—Don Rubin