bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Montreal
Authors: Sabbath Lawrence
Published: June 2023

Although the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde has operated a lunchtime program of one-act plays for four years, the format remains largely unexplored and unexploited. Producing two short-run plays annually cannot be regarded as indicative of serious company or audience interest. Unfortunately, no other group, French or English, has wanted to enter an area of entertainment that appears to be wide-open for entrepreneurial promotion.
London, England
Authors: Itzin Catherine
Published: June 2023

Lunchtime theatre in London was a phenomenon of the late 60’s and the turn of the decade. David Halliwell started the whole lunchtime movement in 1966 with Quipu in the wake of the development of the fringe theatre and in particular, under the influence of two ex-patriate Americans — Charles Marowitz (who brought the ‘Method’ to London in the 50’s, and along with Peter Brook promoted Artaud during the 60’s) and Jim Haynes (a self-styled anarchist and entrepreneur of the alternative society, whose Drury Lane Arts Lab launched just about every later-to-be-important fringe company).
New Directions Conference
Authors: Macina Michael
Published: June 2023

The New Directions Conference, sponsored by Hamilton’s Actor’s Lab Theatre and held over the weekend of October 29, was highlighted by the appearance of three highly alert speakers — Andre Gregory, Jerzy Grotowski, and Charles Marowitz. Coming together in order to deal with the experimental theatre in its present manifestations as well as its future directions, the trio managed to turn the conference into a “festival” of the death of theatre (in most of its contemporary forms) and a conspiratorial annunciation of the birth of a new order. Of the three, Marowitz was the most reluctant to inculpate himself in these crimes. He spoke of maintaining an enlightened status quo armed with theatrical nonsense detectors. (For a transcript of Marowitz’s remarks see page 132). However, both Grotowski and Gregory (men who have worked together and are drinking pals as well) were more than prepared to set their sights on the “untheatrical” future.
The Democratic Spirit
Authors: Marowitz Charles
Published: June 2023

During his talk at the New Directions Conference in Hamilton (for more on the conference see Michael Macina’s article, page 129) director and writer Charles Marowitz candidly discussed the experimental theatre. The following is an excerpted transcript of Marowitz’s remarks to the conference.
Le Theatre Canadien D’Expression Francaise
Authors: Rinfret Edouard , Landes Claude Des , Parson Piper
Published: June 2023

Judge Edouard Rinfret is well known in artistic circles. Thanks to his faith in our creative artists he has aided many cultural organizations. Notably, he organized the Dominion Drama Festival in 1961; was a member of the DDF’s organization committee from 1962 to 1968; and largely through his instigation, the 1967 festival accepted the presentation of Canadian works only.
An Open Letter
Authors: Green Joseph G.
Published: June 2023

As Canada moves cautiously into the final quarter of the twentieth century and as our nation tries to reconcile itself with the world of the future which is already upon us, the subject of obscenity in the fine and performing arts may appear to be less than primary. In a society faced with profound questions of national survival, economic and political, of social insecurity and ever-fluid values, of conservation of this planet’s once-abundant resources and the specie’s once-secure sense of itself, discussions of public taste in art galleries and theatres can seem, if not irrelevant, then at least secondary.
Toronto Free Theatre
Authors: Souchotte Sandra
Published: June 2023

In the bold, black headline of the glossy, colourful pamphlet advertising the new 1977 season at Toronto Free Theatre, the word free is in lighter type making it appear to recede slightly into the background. That word is now the ghost of what it once was but it continues to hover as a spectre of the past and a portent of the future.
Drayton’s Opera House
Authors: Chadwick William
Published: June 2023

Drayton is a small town twenty seven miles north-west of Waterloo. It was first settled in the 1840’s by English families from York County (Jones, Dales, Hambly) who named their community after Sir Robert Peel’s country house in Staffordshire. For the first decades of its history the little settlement flourished. In 1875 it was incorporated as a Village. Four years earlier the Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railway had been pushed through to Harriston thereby giving Drayton that trade and passenger link with the larger towns to the south that was essential for future growth. Within a few years an active and, as far as anyone could tell, successful policy of encouraging industry to locate in the area was embarked upon. By the end of the century the population had risen to just over the one thousand mark, and the Village of Drayton seemed to stand fair for the man of hope and forward-looking mind.
Notes On The Avant Garde: Pip Simmons
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

If anything characterized the avant garde in the theatrical 60’s, it was its unabashedly romantic political sensibility. The 70’s, on the other hand, thanks in large measure to the end of that handy international focal point — the war in Viet Nam — have left many of these troupes with neither romance nor a political focus from which to operate. As a result, most that survived today offer little more than a hazy, populist viewpoint that tends more than anything else to celebrate supreme averageness. Some of the more interesting theatrical minds of the 60’s — most notably Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski — found themselves in the 70’s backing off theatrical concerns almost entirely, becoming less and less interested in even pretending that theatre in any of its manifestations any longer meant anything to them. Brook wandered the world in search of some universal orghast, some international theatrical language, while Grotowski moved toward some ultimate T-group experience with a determination that left most of the 60’s Grotowski groupies groping even more confusedly for new directions. The life and significance of most of the theatrical avant garde disintegrated very quickly in the early 70’s. A malaise had clearly set in which saw most of the 60’s important innovators wandering Ulysses-like in search of theatrical meaning. A few, however, managed to survive and are now doing work that holds genuine long-range potential as the world looks toward 1984.
Theatre In Los Angeles
Authors: Hay Peter
Published: June 2023

It is difficult to see why Los Angeles would have a cultural inferiority complex. Yet it does. Part of it comes from her global supremacy first in the motion picture industry, now television, and to a lesser extent, recording. “Why can’t we also have the world’s best symphony orchestra, the finest museum or the most exciting theatre?” Probably for the same reasons that the world’s fastest swimmers don’t get medals in boxing. The entertainment industry, for which Hollywood is famous, grew up because of a happy conjunction of geography, climate and the American genius for business. Production was simply the necessary adjunct to an insatiable distribution system, where the wealth comes from. Talent is a commodity like anything else; to buy it one needs risk capital. The product can be duplicated and distributed all over the world.
David Rabe’s Viet Nam Trilogy
Authors: Marranca Bonnie
Published: June 2023

The American theatre has been noticeably lacking in its presentation of plays which seriously examine the effects of the Viet Nam experience on Americans. David Rabe is an exception to this generalization. The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones and Streamers, which constitute his Viet Nam trilogy, provide varying perspectives on the life of American soldiers. Together they offer a picture of the soldier in a complete cycle: basic training, war, and the return home.
Theatre In The GDR
Authors: Tracy Gordon L.
Published: June 2023

The theatre of East Germany has come of age. There are now 60 professional theatre companies, including six permanent puppet-theatres, in the tiny land, 40-50 permanent amateur theatres (mostly companies of workers and farmers), nearly 150 other non-professional theatres, three permanent student theatres (Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden), and about 30 “Pioniertheater” or school-theatres. There has been a steady increase in the number of theater-goers in the last few years, and statistics show that there are now 12to 12½ million attendances yearly, over half of them by young people. Seen as a politically and socially useful art which serves all the working population and which is produced and consumed collectively, as a means of mass-communication (and not as a mass-medium!), the theatre commands a lot of attention. It is assumed that the theatre has a function which, thanks to Marx and Lenin, is theoretically defined and, thanks to Brecht, both theoretically and practically defined.
No Play-Acting: An Interview With Ryszard Cieslak
Authors: Cieslak Ryszard
Published: June 2023

Polish actor Ryszard Cieslak is known for his work with director Jerzy Grotowski on such performances as The Constant Prince and Apocalypsis cum Figuris. Writer Bogdan Gieraczynski spoke with Cieslak for CTR and they discussed the recent directions that Grotowski’s work has taken both inside and outside of the theatre.
Profiles in Canadian Drama: Robertson Davies, James Reaney, Gratien Gelinas
Authors: Anthony Geraldine C. , Morley Patricia , Stewart J. , Usmiani Renate , Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

If the first three volumes of Gage’s Profiles in Canadian Drama series, edited by Sister Geraldine Anthony, on Robertson Davies, James Reaney and Gratien Gelinas, are indicative, this needed and much anticipated venture must rate as a major disappointment. Its aim is laudable: “From the complexity of social views expressed, there should gradually emerge a mosaic that, seen in its entirety, may surely be called Canada.” Hopefully succeeding volumes on George Ryga, John Herbert, Michel Tremblay and others will help overcome an inauspicious beginning and attain this goal.
Look Both Ways: Theatre Experiences
Authors: Voaden Herman , Brown Ernest
Published: June 2023

At the present time there are as many approaches to teaching drama and theatre as there are drama and theatre teachers who find themselves floundering in this relatively new wave of the school curriculum. Look Both Ways is an anthology of “theatre experiences” compiled for use in teaching drama and theatre (the editors make a definite distinction) in senior high schools and junior colleges. The book is important as a step toward achieving a consistent approach in the teaching of both theatre and drama. Its structure certainly gives ample opportunity for creativity and exploration of the imagination, while affording good literary material for the teacher who wishes more substance . The “further reading” bibliographies at the end of the various sections willappeal to the academic. Most importantly, the book encourages the teacher and students to try new methods , to experiment with new forms, to escape the confines of tradition and thus, to “look both ways”.
One Crack Out, The St. Nicholas Hotel, The Donnelly’s, Part II
Authors: French David , Reaney James , Snider Edwin
Published: June 2023

That we are building a dramatic literature in this country is becoming increasingly apparent and those who are part of this growth - and I’m speaking right now of both David French and James Reaney - can take great pride in their work. I very much enjoyed reading One Crack Out and The St. Nicholas Hotel. French’s is a well-structured, naturalistic drama with an effective narrative thrust and Reaney’s is an extraordinarily moving piece of dramatic poetry. But certainly one test of an effective dramatic literature is that the works can be produced effectively on our stages and frankly , I have my doubts about both these scripts.
A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800,
Authors: Highfall, Jr. Philip H. , Burnim Kalman A. , Langhans Edward A. , Stuckey Johanna
Published: June 2023

In 1973 Volumes I and 2 of this biographical dictionary appeared, followed in 1975 by Volumes 3 and 4. The project is massive and comprehensive in plan and scope. In 12 or more Volumes, the authors propose to “provide brief biographical notices of all persons who were members of theatrical companies or occasional performers or were patentees or servants of the patent theatres, opera houses, amphitheatres, pleasure gardens, theatrical taverns, music rooms, fair booths, and other places of public entertainment in London and its immediate environs from the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 until the end of the season 1799-1800.” This said, the authors at once recognize the impossibility of the task they have set themselves, but they have found “at least some information” on more than 8500 people - a creditable achievement.
Henslowe’s Rose: The Stage and the Staging
Authors: Rhodes Ernest L. , Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

Ernest L. Rhodes’ Henslowe’s Rose: The Stage and the Staging is the latest learned study of Elizabethan stagecraft for specialis ts interested in further speculation about the playhouses of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. And speculation it remains. Although Professor Rhodes has logically synthesized all available information to form his hypotheses concerning the appearance of the Rose Theatre, the characteristics of its stage, and how it was used, he has few surprising revelations. His precise reasoning is continually interrupted by qualifiers such as “I suggest”, “I believe that”, “It seems likely”, “I think”, “Apparently”, and “It may have been”. Of course no one really knows, and barring miraculous new discoveries, scholars must content themselves with cogent thoroughly-researched conjectures such as this. Like similar works on the Red Bull, the Globe, and Blackfriars, Henslowe’s Rose examines one playhouse in detail wisely avoiding the necessity of generalizing from the particular.
ACTRA And The CBC
Authors: Souchotte Sandra , McCaughna David
Published: June 2023

“Who flung dung at Nellie McClung”, is a ditty recalled by theatre critic Herbert Whittaker in his assessment of the battle between the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The argument centred on the hiring of American actress Kathleen Widdoes to play the Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung and the issue brought the long seething disagreement between the bodies to national attention.
Song In A Minor Key: Canada’s Musical Theatre
Authors: Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

Canadian musical theatre has largely been ignored by our writers and critics. Even the Canadian Theatre Review has rarely mentioned it in almost four years of publication. To rectify this omission, this critical and historical examination will provide a general though obviously not comprehensive assessment of the indigenous Canadian musical theatre by concentrating upon trends, relationships and characteristics. Because of the magnitude of this topic, opera and ballet will not be considered. Nor will French language musical theatre in Quebec except when it relates directly to developments in English Canada, because French theatre music stems from an entirely different tradition and has had such an influence upon contemporary Québécois theatre that it deserves its own detailed study.
EIGHT MEN SPEAK
Authors: Endres Robin , Souchotte Sandra
Published: June 2023

The Workers’ Theatre movement in Canada has been notoriously over-looked and so the publication of Eight Men Speak (and other plays from the Canadian Workers’ Theatre) fills an important gap in Canadian theatre history. The Toronto Workers’ Theatre of the thirties was given limited press coverage, mostly by leftist or Communist journals and newspapers, while its ideological successor, Theatre of Action, being less explicitly Marxist, received full appraisals of its productions in all the local dailies. But copies of the plays which were performed and assessed are extremely difficult to find. New Hogtown Press has sifted through such long defunct Canadian periodicals as Masses, New Frontier and New Frontiers (and in some cases contacted the original writers) to compile this present collection. It includes nine plays dating from 1928 to 1937.
SQRIEUX-DE-DIEU: I LOVE YOU BABY BLUE
Authors: Lambert Betty , Passe Theatre , Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

Sex sells – even in Canada as the box-office success of two recently-published Canadian plays confirms. Sex is central to and helps explain the appeal of both Paul Thompson and Theatre Passe Muraille’s I Love You Baby Blue, edited by Connie Brissenden, and Sqrieux de dieu, by Vancouver playwright Betty Lambert.
SAINTE CARMEN DE LA MAIN: DAMNEE MANON, SACREE SANDRA and SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
Authors: Tremblay Michel , Tremblay Michel , Riese Laura
Published: June 2023

The first two of these three plays are a continuation of A toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou. The sisters Carmen and Manon are all that are left of the family after the car accident which killed their parents and young brother. Tremblay gave those girls names stamped with a fatality that brings them, in these two new plays, to their destiny or apotheosis. Stigmatized by their past though now on their own, they fashion their lives according to their own desires. They will break the barriers that hemmed them in to reach a new self realization for better or worse.
PERSONS OF THE DRAMA: SINGULARITIES
Authors: Kauffmann Stanley , Simon John , Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Theatre critics, in many respects, are just like real people. They eat and, very often, they drink. They have their loves and hates. When you prick them, they usually bleed and when you challenge them – which is what one usually does with critics – they tend to foam, fulminate and usually attempt a further justification of their opinions. Immediately thereafter (if I can use my own experiences as any guide), they go into a state of deep emotional depression wondering why they are not being appreciated. For critics, again like real people, want to be liked and that is an element that should not be overlooked when attempting to come to grips with the critical mind. That this is so is, in human terms, understandable. What is less clear is why critics choose to live their lives amidst the scorn and distrust of those whom they say they care most deeply about. What I’m suggesting here is that the critic, to a very great extent, is a masochist. His search is masochistic, his drives are masochistic and his willingness to consistently expose himself to abuse is masochistic.
Biographical Checklist
Authors: Cook Michael
Published: June 2023

In response to many requests from readers, CTR will be providing biographical checklists from time to time on key figures in the Canadian theatre. The first CTR checklist appeared on playwright Beverley Simons in CTR 9. The following checklist on playwright Michael Cook was prepared for CTR by Don Rubin.
The Theatre Of Death
Authors: Kantor Tadeusz
Published: June 2023

According to Gordon Craig, somewhere along the banks of the Ganges two women forced their way into the shrine of the Divine Marionette, which was jealously hiding the secrets of the true THEATRE. They envied the ROLE of this Perfect Being in illuminating human intellect with the sacred feeling of the existence of God, its GLORY; they spied on its Movements and Gestures, its sumptuous attire and, by cheap parody, began to satisfy the vulgar taste of the mob. At the moment when they finally ordered a similar monument built for themselves - the modern theatre, as we know it only too well and as it has lasted to this day , was born. A clamorous Public Service Institute. With it appeared the ACTOR. Indefence of his theory Craig cites the opinion of Eleanor Duse: “to save the theatre, it must be destroyed, it is necessary for all actors and actresses to die of plague . . . for it is they who render art impossible... .”
Characters In The Dead Class
Authors: Kantor Tadeusz
Published: June 2023

The characters in The Dead Class are neither individualized nor clear-cut and unambiguous. As if pasted or stitched together from ill-matched parts: remnants of their childhood, the vicissitudes of their (not always creditable) lives, their dreams and passions, they fall apart and become transformed with every minute, and through this continuous motion and theatre running riot, they progress inexorably to their final form which is irrevocably transfixed and is to encompass the Entire Memory of The Dead Class. Final preparations are hastily made for the Grand Game With Emptiness.
What Glorious Times they Had, The Donnellys, Hoarse Muse
Authors: Grant Diane , Colley Peter , Campbell Paddy , Skolnik William , Plant Richard
Published: June 2023

It may seem odd to begin a review of three contemporary Canadian plays with comments on the nature of the 19th-century theatre, but the comparison implied, I feel, is revealing. For many years , theatre people - critics , writers, performers alike - turned a hostile eye on the popular theatre of th is period because it was believed to contain nothing but melodramas - the word itself was condemning unoriginal domestic dramas, silly farces and comedies . In light of the searing flashes of insight provided by playwrights from Ibsen on, these earlier works came to be considered worthless.
Le Reformiste ou L’Honneur Des Hommes
Authors: Dubé Marcel , Rièse Laure
Published: June 2023

Marcel Dubé’s plays show a continuous evolution and this one considers some important problems in the field of political options. Régis is a leader, a man with a high ideal , fighting for it and confronted by different groups of trade-unionists whose demands are more important than an ideological welfare. On a smaller scale we see also the disintegration of the family and the good or bad characters of the children. Dubé has created a strong father figure in Régis amidst a variety of feminine personalities well defined. Some put him on a pedestal, others debase him.
An Edmonton View: Assuming Too Much In The Regional System
Authors: Filewod Alan
Published: June 2023

With all the sophistication and dialectical skill a modern historian has at his command, it is not difficult to prove the inevitability of historical change in art no less than in politics. It is curious, though, that we are less capable of demonstrating the process of that change — conceptual and structural — in our own time and in a practical manner. Artists, critics — almost all of us, in fact — are caught in a bind of consciousness for it is easier to think of change as concurrent to the passing of generations than it is to readjust current values.
Citadel Exchange: The Coe Report
Authors: Shoctor J.H. , Macdonnell P.L.P.
Published: June 2023

In the fall of 1973, British director Robin Phillips was hired as the artistic director of the Stratford Festival in Ontario, an appointment which set off a wave of controversy across the country. Just a few weeks ago, the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton’s major regional theatre company, named British director Peter Coe as its artistic director and shortly thereafter another controversy began over the question of the capability of Canadian directors to run Canadian theatres. One of the first to respond against the latest importation was Canadian Actor’s Equity Association, which protested against Coe’s appointment “in the strongest possible terms. The Citadel Board thereafter expressed its amazement to Equity that the appointment should have been controversial. The following exchange between Equity and the Citadel define the two positions. They are published in their entirely here for the first time.
Of Puppets And Dream Plays
Authors: Litzenberger David
Published: June 2023

He called it “child of my greatest pain.” He bore it as the progeny of disillusionment as well as the hope of the future. Indeed, in 1901, the dramatic vision of August Strindberg’s A Dream Play was far ahead of its time; it remains surprising and valid even today, still open, as a result, to the greatest latitude in imagination and interpretation that can be afforded.
Felix Mirbt: Words And Visions
Authors: Mirbt Felix
Published: June 2023

Felix Mirbt was introduced to the art of puppetry in Germany, where he studied stagecraft, kinetics and design in Munich and Goettingen. During his twenty years in Canada he has worked for a wide range of theatre companies in an even wider range of occupations: prop maker, technician, scenic designer, actor and director: he has also participated in the making of educational films for television. During all this time he continued to work on new approaches to the art of puppetry. His puppet plays, L’ombre Chinoise (Innuit legends), and Abu Hassan (Arab tales), were his first experiments with the techniques he was later to use with such success in his collaborations with Jean Herbiet on such scripts as A Dream Play. The following comments by Mirbt have been excerpted from a conversation he had with CTR in November. The photographs are by Don Rubin.
Theatre Training In Canada
Authors: Andre Marion
Published: June 2023

It is rather difficult to put into writing, in a concise form, one’s observations and concerns relating to theatre training in Canada. I shall try to do so nevertheless since the existing situation offers cause for anxiety.
Cooperative Training
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

As anyone who reads the fine print in theatrical playbills can attest, we are currently into a period of active co-production. Companies from one end of the country to the other are working together to produce classics (The Dream Play), contemporary work (Far As The Eye Can See, The Dismissal) and even musicals (Cruel Tears). But though theatre companies are working together in an effort to save money and improve quality, theatre training programs across the country remain, by and large, separate and aloof from one another. In the following article, New York writer Jennifer Merin looks at one American program in educational cooperation, a program that in its six years of existence has helped not only the schools and their many students hut through them the theatre at-large.
Dites — Le Avec Des Fleurs
Authors: Barbeau Jean , Dubé Marcel , Rièse Laura
Published: June 2023

In a double effort, what portion can be claimed by each author? Taking into consideration Dube’s former plays, one can imagine him furnishing the frame for the picturesque and pathetic characters as well as the new experiences of young intellectuals and artists. He is very apt in describing the different social milieux and no doubt the intricate psychological workings of a heterosexual community with its illusions and disillusions. I can see Barbeau more inclined towards the satirical and humouristic aspect of the undertaking. He would be the one composing amusing romantic songs, finding analogies between the botanical and human world. This astonishing combination has produced a topical modern play.
Stage Voices
Authors: Anthony Geraldine , Snider Edwin
Published: June 2023

In the world of contemporary Canadian theatre, Geraldine Anthony S.C., Ph.D., teacher of English at Mt. St. Vincent University in Halifax , is an innocent. That simple fact is painfully obvious from almost every word she herself writes in Stage Voices. primarily a collection of autobiographical writings by a dozen Canadian dramatists. In prefacing these writings and in introducing the book as a whole, her facts are often shaky, her conclusions are almost invariably dubious, her grasp of the large movements in Canadian theatre history weak and her understanding of the creative process - if one can judge by the questions she put to these writers naive sometimes to the point of absurdity. And yet, in the world of Canadian theatre, Geraldine Anthony is also a rarity for not only does she have some good impulses and ideas relating to the general dissemination of theatrical knowledge but she follows through on them and actually gets them into print. This is, after all, her second major publishing project in Canada (the first being Gage’s Profiles in Canadian Drama) and she has more on the way. No mean feat in th is country where actually doing something is tantamount to sacrilege and usually punishable by public humiliation.
Theatre for the People: The Story of the Volksbuhne
Authors: Davies Cecil W. , Innes Christopher
Published: June 2023

As a concept the German Volksbuhne has an irresistible fascination, as an institution it turns out to be little more than a season-ticket organisation; and this study demonstrates - ably but unintentionally - exactly why there are so few books on the subject
Interview: Of Masks, Mirrors And Lindsay Kemp
Authors: Innes Christopher
Published: June 2023

British Mime Lindsay Kemp studied dance with Marie Rambert, mime with Marcel Marceau and his link with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes is indicated by the presence of Anton Dolin in his company. His work is a synthesis of many different aspects of modern theatre from French farce, British Music Hall, Buster Keaton and the pop music scene to Japanese Noh and Kabuki Theatre, Cocteau, the Surrealists and Anlonin Artaud. His repertoire, which includes Woyzeck, The Maids, a children’s pantomime, a clown mime, Cruel Garden (a piece dealing with Lorca’s vision of life and death created for the Ballet Rambert), Salomé and Flowers (a spectacle based on Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers) reflects these stylistic inspirations on the thematic level. In recent years, Kemp and his company have been performing not only in England but world-wide. This past March, for the first time, the company performed in Canada at Toronto Workshop Productions and the run had to be extended several times. Two Kemp works were produced in Toronto — Salomé and Flowers. It was Flowers, particularly, with its violent homosexual themes and transvestite dancers, its powerful technical effects and the way it put Artaud’s ideals into practice with the actors consciously exploring the limits of experience as “athletes of the senses” that caused theatre people to take note that a true “original” was in their midst. The following exclusive interview with Kemp and his associate director and fellow mime David Haughton was conducted in May by Christopher Innes especially for CTR. In it, Kemp speaks of many aspects of contemporary theatre art including the relationship of the artist to himself, the artist to his audience and the artist to society at-large. As such, it would seem to be of genuine interest not only to theatre people in Canada but to theatre people everywhere.
Actors’ Equity: A Commitment To Canada
Authors: MacDonald Dan
Published: June 2023

This past May, the Manitoba Theatre Centre celebrated its 20th anniversary and, as part of the celebration, sponsored a national conference to discuss problems being faced by Boards of Directors. Nearly 100 people attended that meeting representing theatres from coast-to-coast. They heard statements from representatives of the Canada Council, from the Council for Business and the Arts as well as from various artistic and board representatives. One of the most impressive talks given during that weekend, though, was one by Dan MacDonald, the current president of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association who was appearing at MTC in Royal Hunt of the Sun. Following are excerpts from his extemporary remarks. They are published here with his permission.
Dramatic History: H.M.S. Parliament
Authors: Lawrence Robert G.
Published: June 2023

In general, Canadian theatre of the 19th century tends to be associated with heavy, often unproducable, verse tragedies. The fact is that such tragedies were only a small part of the very active theatrical life of that period. Burlesques, political satires and topical revues were produced in great numbers during the century. As well, longer scripted comedies were produced all across the country. Recently, CTR Publications released the first volume in a proposed five-volume anthology of early Canadian stage scripts under the general title, Canada’s Lost Plays: Volume One, The Nineteenth Century. This volume — available now in both paperback and hardcover editions — features six 19th century plays, five of which are comedies. One play included in the volume is William Henry Fuller’s H.M.S. Parliament of 1880. In the following article Prof Robert G. Lawrence examines the script’s development and production history. It gives, we believe, a genuine insight into 19th century Canadian stage conditions.
Augusto Boal’s Theatre Of The Oppressed
Authors: Mellgren Fredrik
Published: June 2023

Augusto Boal — the 47-year old Brazilian-born playwright, director and theatre theorist — taught for many years in the Sao Paulo School of Drama. In 1956, he became the artistic director of the Arena Theatre in Sao Paulo and produced plays from both the classical and the modern world repertoire. In the 60’s, Boal began a series of experiments aimed at bringing theatre — or, more accurately, theatre forms — to large segments of his society, to segments of his society that he felt needed to become more socially and politically aware. His work led to several arrests and eventually to his decision to leave Brazil entirely for an exile life in Portugal where he presently lives. In the years since, Boal has travelled through Europe giving demonstrations of his ideas and has written a number of books including one that has been attracting particular attention of late entitled, The Theatre of the Oppressed. The book is currently available in Spanish, French, Italian and English. Because Boal’s work and ideas are virtually unknown in Canada, CTR felt it would be of interest to publish the following interview with him. The interview was conducted by the Swedish critic Thomas Mellgren during Boal’s recent visit to Sweden. It appears in English for the first time courtesy of the well-known Swedish theatre journal, Entre.
Making The Rounds
Authors: Close J. Herbert
Published: June 2023

A company of 16 Canadian theatre artists led by playwrights Michael Cook and Beverley Simons is spending a month this summer work shopping new scripts as well as studying operation methods of the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Centre in Waterford, Connecticut. The group, which also includes two dramaturges, nine actors, two technical assistants and an administrator, plans to offer its findings in the fall to all organizations in the country interested in script development. The hope is that resources can be pooled each summer for a national month-long workshop along O’Neill lines beginning in 1979. The O’Neill Centre (staged readings done in association with top actors, directors and dramaturges) workshops 15 to 18 new scripts each year. The scripts are then made available to theatres and producers right across the country. More than two-thirds of the plays work shopped have been subsequently produced either on Broadway, off-Broadway or in one of the major regional theatres. A pretty fair average in any country.
Women Write for Theatre
Authors: Fielden Charlotte , Hamer Maimie , Lustig Helen , Havard Lezley , Penman Margaret , Ravel Aviva , Sarossy Via , Souchotte Sandra
Published: June 2023

Women Write For Theatre is a four volume series of plays by Canadian women playwrights, winners of a national playwriting competition held during International Women’s Year. Though this representative selection of one-act and full-length plays has been in print for almost two years it is the victim of benign neglect having received little or no critical opinion or exploration.
The Oedipus Experiment: A Production Diary
Authors: Selman Jan
Published: June 2023

This past January in Vancouver, an event of unique proportions took place on the stage of the Vancouver Playhouse — a production of Seneca’s Oedipus directed by 29-year old Yurek Bogajewicz, a native-born Pole now living in Canada. Bogajewicz received his formal training from the distinguished Academy of Theatre Arts in Warsaw where he studied both acting and directing. In 1969, Jerzy Grotowski offered an extended workshop to the students at the Academy. Grotowski was impressed with Bogajewicz and invited him to join his Theatre Laboratory. Bogajewicz, however, opted to remain at the Academy to complete his more traditional training. On graduation, however, Bogajewicz contacted Grotowski again and soon became a member of the Theatre Laboratory. At that time, the Laboratory had passed from its “poor theatre” phase to what has come to be called the “Holiday Project, “an exploration of the actor as individual and of the total dissolution of the bounds between theatre and direct human experience.
Soviet Diary
Authors: Juliani John
Published: June 2023

Vancouver director John Juliani has been travelling through Europe and Asia during the past year on a Canada Council grant. After spending a considerable amount of time in some of the Eastern European countries, he applied for a visa to visit the Soviet Union and was turned down. Several applications later, Juliani was granted permission to visit Leningrad and Moscow. The following are excerpts from a diary which Juliani kept during his two-week visit in the USSR.
A Designer’s Portfolio
Authors: Kerr Mary
Published: June 2023

Winnipeg-born designer Mary Kerr has worked with director Stephen Katz on five productions, the latest being the Vancouver Play-house production of Machiavelli’s Mandragola (The Mandrake) done in January, 1974. Now living in Toronto, Ms. Kerr is one of the few designers currently working in the theatre who is consistently bold in her use of colour. In addition to her work in Vancouver, her designs have also been seen at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre, and at The National Arts Centre in Ottawa. This coming summer she and Katz will work together again at The Shaw Festival. When not designing, she teaches at Toronto’s Ryerson Institute.
Sticks and Stones: The Donnelly’s, Part One
Authors: Reaney James
Published: June 2023

Caution: Sticks and Stones: The Donnelly’s, Part One is fully protected by copyright. All inquiries concerning production of the play including scenes from it should be directed to the author’s agent, Sybil Hutchinson, Apt. 409 Rams-den Pl., 50 Hillsboro Ave., Toronto, Ontario M5R IS8.
Calgary
Authors: Baldridge Harold
Published: June 2023

Several years back, I read Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; and after reading the paragraph referring to Sitting Bull’s flight with the Sioux nation to seek refuge in Canada, it occurred to me that there was a play inherent in that small reference. The thought persisted. In the summer of 1972, I happened to mention this idea for a play. The person to whom I was talking told me that the play had already been written by Sharon Poliock, a writer who lived on the west coast.
Calgary II
Authors: Portman Jamie
Published: June 2023

Sharon Pollock is a playwright concerned with commitment, its nature and the personal crises it can provoke. That’s why it would be wrong to view her play, Walsh, as mere recreated history and nothing more.
Montreal
Authors: Tembeck Robert
Published: June 2023

Theatron Montreal received your invitation to apply for entry in the ‘74 Festival, being held May 6-11 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and in stead of writing you a brief note of thanks, I wanted to share with you some of the reactions your invitation prompted in me.
St. John’s
Authors: Cook Michael
Published: June 2023

Government’s interest in the arts until very recently has been minimal. Reasons have been advanced for this, the most common one has been that in a society struggling for survival bread was more important than culture. As this idea was advanced in the main by a class whose philistinism was matched only by its corporate and political insensitivity, it didn’t hold too much water. With the exception of a few individuals, notably in the visual arts, the problem was left in the hands of a few dilettantes with social pretensions who saw, in the Dominion Drama Festival, not merely an opportunity for the amateur groups to exercise their talents, but an occasion at which to practise the dictatorial philanthropy so beloved .of that organization. Fortunately for Newfoundland, unlike the rest of Canada, no professional regional theatre was contemplated where those attitudes could simply be transferred from a comparatively harmless amateur preoccupation to a professional situation where they could effectively strangle the potential and creative energy of a people.
New York
Authors: Merin Jennifer
Published: June 2023

I was one of the sleepy, bleary-eyed people who bundled into overcoats and ventured out of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and into the cold, sunny morning, after having seen the first of four performances of Robert Wilson’s latest theatre spectacular, The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin. The majority of the several hundred spectators who had entered the auditorium at 7 p.m. of the previous evening, fortified with box suppers .and thermos bottles of coffee (not to mention good intentions) had drifted away at various hours into the night, into the comfort of their beds. Some, who couldn’t get with the Wilson adventure, left early. The others, devotees of the avant-garde, persistent in their vigil, despite their determination to receive the full fourteen-hour long initiation into the Wilson experience, gave in at times to their drowsiness and allowed sleep to bathe refreshingly over them – their snores occasionally resounding through the auditorium and sawing through the silent threads of Wilson’s fantastic images as they were woven into a living tapestry and unfolded upon the stage. Sleep must be an associate of Wilson’s work; for at the frontier between sleep and non-sleep, where the human mind softens the hard edges of hours and minutes, one is much more willing to embrace Wilson’s extraordinary images and unusual sense of theatrical time. In this half-hallucinatory/half-trance state, exterior and interior images cross-fade. Wilson’s dreams mingle and intertwine with your own. Although I cannot report the effect of Wilson’s theatre piece on the other hundred or so spectators who greeted the dawn with Stalin and I cannot (I confess) recall with certainty the sequence of event or detail, I have experienced the recurrence of Wilson’s images in my dreams and occasionally in a momentary tableau which passes through my daily life.
Theatre Resources in Canadian Collections by Heather McCallum
Authors: Stuart Ross
Published: June 2023

Heather McCallum’s Theatre Resources in Canadian Collections is a necessity for anyone interested in researching Canada’s theatrical past. The author deserves commendation for undertaking such an immense and daunting project. She has produced an easy-to-use reference book, which is well-organized, concise, and simple to follow.
Introduction: The Inevitable Encounter
Authors: Goodman David G.
Published: June 2023

We may say that the Western world has not yet, or not generally, met with authentic representatives of “real” non-Western traditions. But this encounter is, in the end, inevitable… . One day the West will have to know and to understand the existential situations and cultural universes of non-Western peoples; moreover, the West will come to value them as integral with the history of the human spirit and will no longer regard them as immature episodes or as aberrations from an exemplary History of man — a History conceived, of course, only as that of Western man … . Even supposing that, one day soon, all the traditional societies now beginning to play an active part in history must end by becoming radically Westernised — in other words, assuming that non-Western peoples are fated to lose their place in History except in so far as they become Westernised — even then the encounter and comparison with the authentic traditions of the non-Western world could not be avoided.
Kara’s Vision: The World As Public Toilet
Authors: Kiyokazu Yamamoto
Published: June 2023

Aggressively liberating theatre from theatre buildings has been a major theme in world drama over the last 10 years. No one in Japan, however, has been as successful as director-writer Kara Jūrō in making the theatre’s confrontation with the streets a significant encounter with history. Playwright Yamamoto Kiyokazu examines Kara’s work and its place in the development of a genuine contemporary Japanese theatre.
A Scene: The Beggar of Love
Authors: Jūrō Kara
Published: June 2023

The interior of a public lavatory. Two policemen have been called to investigate suspicious goings on there.
Notes To Encourage A Production of Satō Makoto’s My Beatles
Authors: Goodman David G.
Published: June 2023

Born in 1943, Satō Makoto is one of the most important dramatists writing in Japanese today. He has received both the Kishida Prize for Playwriting and the Kinokuniya Drama Prize, the most coveted awards a Japanese dramatist can receive. He is a central figure in “68/71,” an active theatre ensemble for whom he writes his plays, and he is known as one of the most resourceful directors in Japan, having staged brilliant productions of works ranging from O’Neill’s Hairy Ape to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Of all the plays written during the past 10 years, both in and outside Japan, Satō’s rank among the most intellectually profound and dramatically sophisticated..
Sleepy Tunes In Toronto
Authors: Rubin Don
Published: June 2023

Back in the Dark Ages — that period of our cultural and theatrical development before Theatre Passe Muraille discovered collective creation as a viable alternative to traditionally-scripted drama — I remember trying to find my way one rainy night through the incensed halls of Rochdale College to see a production of Paul Foster’s off-Broadway hit, Tom Paine. When I finally found the space, I was told by Jim Garrard, the director of the piece and the founder of the group that would eventually call itself Passe Muraille (Beyond the Walls), that they were having trouble getting production rights to the script. This, for all intents and purposes, on opening night. Nevertheless, the show went on, Tom Paine spoke out for human freedom and the modern phase of theatrical growth in Toronto was officially ushered in.
The Blyth Summer Festival
Authors: Reaney James S.
Published: June 2023

Southern Ontario is blessed with a great deal of summer theatre and that theatre has (deservedly or not) attracted varying degrees of critical attention and support. The Blyth Summer Festival, near Goderich, Ontario, has flourished for the last four summers without attracting widespread attention from the media. The Festival was overlooked in the Globe and Mail rundown of summer theatre in the province and so remains a largely unknown and unrecognised quality. What follows is partly an attempt to correct this by reporting on the special character of Blyth — a festival theatre which, unlike some of its more established counterparts, possesses a willingness to challenge the boundaries of traditional summer fare. This special quality, along with artistic director James Roy’s devotion to producing original work, makes such a report long overdue.
Winnipeg’s New Voices
Authors: Runnells Rory
Published: June 2023

In Winnipeg, where theatre revolves about the Manitoba Theatre Centre, and where other theatrical activity is fitful and seemingly impossible to develop, a new play is rare at any time. The appearance then this past season of several new plays by Winnipeggers as well as the world premiere of Joanna Glass’s The Last Chalice at MTC in celebration of its 20th season, was a welcome and necessary surprise. If this actively was indicative of a “trend,” it would be even more welcome. Unfortunately, the trend is unlikely to continue.