TRIC/RTauC Vol 15 no 2

[Robert Nunn]

Dear CANDRAMA subscribers:
     We are sending you the table of contents and abstracts of
the just-published issue of Theatre Research in Canada /
Recherches Theatrales au Canada. If you do not already receive
the journal either as a subscriber or as a member of the
Association for Canadian Theatre Research, information on how to
do so is included at the end of this file.
 
              VOL 15 NO 2  FALL / AUTOMNE 1994
 
                       CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE
                   THEATRE RESEARCH IN CANADA
                 RECHERCHES THEATRALES AU CANADA
 
                         CELESTE DERKSEN
     Out of the Closet:  Dramatic Works by Sarah Anne Curzon
            Part Two:  Re-Dressing Gender Inequality:
                  The Sweet Girl Graduate / 123
 
This second of a two-part essay on Sarah Anne Curzon's "closet
drama" examines the novel and duplicitous effects of cross-
dressing in The Sweet Girl Graduate.  The essay argues that
Curzon's play is unique in the theatrical tradition of cross-
dressing, first because it provides an extended political
argument for the expansion of women's educational privileges and,
second, because it displaces the male gaze in order to dramatize
female use of, and response to, the cross-dressed body.
 
Cette seconde partie de l'essai de Celeste Derksen sur les pieces
de 'theatre a lire' de Sarah Anne Curzon etudie les effets
nouveaux et ambigus du travestissment theatral dans The Sweet
Girl Graduate.  Cet essaie montre que la piece de Curzon est
unique dans la tradition theatrale du travestissment parce que,
d'une part, elle apporte un argument politique de poids en faveur
de l'augmentation des privileges des femmes en matiere de
formation et que, d'autre part, elle deloge le regard du male
pour mettre en evidence l'usage du corps travesti par les femmes
ainsi que leur reaction a ce corps travesti.
 
            JENNIFER HARVIE AND RICHARD PAUL KNOWLES
              Dialogic Monologue: a Dialogue / 136
 
Michael Sidnell has drawn attention to the potential for dramatic
monologue to be dialogic in ways that dialogue in the theatre
rarely is, and he has pointed to a recent proliferation of
dialogic monologue in Canadian theatre. This essay will examine
the potentially dialogic function of monologue in some
contemporary Canadian plays. Questions central to this
examination will be: when is monologue dialogic, and what are the
effects of dialogic monologue?
     Considering that the actor often stands indexically for an
autonomous subject which is easily conflated with the character
the actor is playing, we are interested in looking at how the
dialogism of the character's monologue might destabilize
subjectivity. Looking at monologues from a range of contemporary
Canadian scripts and performances, we will consider how the
dialogic configuration of subjectivity affects gender, race, and
sexuality. And considering that dialogism may be (as Helene
Keyssar has argued it was for Bakhtin) "key to the deprivileging
of absolute, authoritarian discourses," we are interested in what
specific "authoritarian discourses contemporary Canadian dialogic
monologue deprivileges.
Michael Sidnell a attire notre attention sur le fait que le
monologue dramatique au theatre peut etre dialogique d'une
maniere tres differente du dialogue, et il a note que le
monologue dialogique est desormais tres frequent dans le theatre
canadien.  Notre essai analyse la fonction potentiellement
dialogique du monologue dans quelques pieces canadiennes
contemporaines et il s'articule autour des questions suivantes:
quand le monologue est-il dialogique, et quels en sont les
effets.
     Considerant le fait que l'acteur est lui-meme souvent le
signe d'un sujet autonome pouvant etre assimile-identifie
facilement au personnage qu'il joue, nous nous attacherons a
observer comment le dialogisme du monologue du personnage peut
destabiliser la subjectivite.  En analysant des monologues
extraits de plusieurs pieces et spectacles canadiens
contemporains, nous essayerons de comprendre comment la
configuration dialogique de la subjectivite influence la
representation des genres, des races et de la sexualite.  Enfin,
et considerant que le dialogisme (selon Helen Keyssar, Bakhtin
serait d'accord avec cette theorie) depouille de leurs privileges
les discours absolus et autoritaires, nous nous interesserons
particulierement aux discours autoritaires que deprivilegie le
monologue dialogique canadien contemporain.
 
                        MICHAEL MCKINNIE
    King-Maker: Reading Theatrical Presentations of Canadian
                     Political History / 164
 
This essay examines Allan Stratton's Rexy! and Michael
Hollingsworth's The Life and Times of Mackenzie King in the
context of their historiographic representations of former
Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King.  The essay argues that
the plays' different tropological strategies of representation
determine their respective historical narratives, and explores
some of the dramaturgical and theatrical implications of these
strategies.  Specifically, "Kingmaker" argues that
Hollingsworth's narrative is constructed through metonymy,
textually and scenographically drawing attention to the space
between historical events and its own representation of those
events.  Stratton's narrative, in contrast, is guided by
metaphor, and attempts to efface the representational
methodologies at work in its construction of King.
Cet article etudie les pieces Rexy! de Allan Stratton et The Life
and Times of Mackenzie King de Michael Hollingsworth dans le
contexte de leur representation historiographique de l'ancien
premier ministre du Canada Mackenzie King.  Il montre que les
differentes strategies tropologiques de representation utilisees
dans les pieces determinent leurs narrations historiques
respectives, et il explore les repercussions dramaturgiques et
theatrales de ces strategies.  Plus specifiquement, 'Kingmaker'
montre que la narration de Hollingsworth est construite a partir
de la metonymie et qu'elle attire textuellement et
scenographiquement l'attention sur la difference entre les
evenements historiques et sa propre representation de ces
evenements.  La narration de Stratton, elle, est guidee par la
metaphore et elle tente d'effacer les methodologies de
representation utilisees pour la construction de King.
 
                      CRAIG STEWART WALKER
              Elegy, Mythology and the Sublime in
    Michael Cook's Colour the Flesh the Colour of Dust / 191
 
Michael Cook, one of Canada's most admired playwrights, died in
St John's, Newfoundland on July 2, 1994, at the age of 61.  This
essay, which was written before his death, analyses the poetics
of his work in reference to one of his earliest plays.  While the
political stance of the play is indeterminate, Cook's
reimagination of Newfoundland in terms of pastoral elegy,
mythology and the romantic sublime creates a compelling vision of
the struggle to make something coherent out of the fragmented
experience of modernity.
Michael Cook, un des dramaturges les plus apprecies au Canada,
est mort a St. John's, Terre-Neuve, le 2 juillet 1994, a l'age de
61 ans.  Cet essai, ecrit avant sa mort, analyse la poetique de
son oeuvre a partir d'une de ces premieres pieces.  Bien que les
positions politiques de la piece soient indeterminees, Cook
reinvente ici Terre-Neuve dans le sens de l'elegie pastorale, de
la mythologie et du sublime romantique, ce qui contribue a creer
une vision fascinante de la lutte pour rendre coherente
l'experience fragmentaire de la modernite.
 
                          DENYSE LYNDE
                 In Memoriam Michael Cook / 204
 
                  REVIEWS /COMPTES RENDUS / 207
 
   John Ball and Richard Plant, eds., Bibliography of Theatre
         History in Canada: The Beginnings Through 1984.
                         by ALAN FILEWOD
 
  Colbert, Francois avec la collaboration de Jacques Nantel et
   Suzanne Bilodeau. Le marketing des arts et de la culture.
                       par BENOIT LAPLANTE
 
    Alan Filewod, ed. The CTR Anthology: Fifteen Plays from
                    Canadian Theatre Review.
                         by ANNE NOTHOF
 
    Rita Much, ed. Women on the Canadian Stage: The Legacy of
                            Hrotsvit.
                       by SHEILA RABILLARD
 
 Jean-Marc Larrue, Le Monument inattendu.  Le Monument-National,
                            1893-1993
                        par JEAN LAFLAMME
 
 Anton Wagner, ed. A Vision of Canada: Herman Voaden's Dramatic
                        Works 1928-1945.
                         by DON PERKINS
 
Larry Tremblay, Le crane des theatres.  Montreal:  Lemeac, coll.
         Essai, 1993.  135 p. (Preface Nicola Savarese)
                       par ALAIN FOURNIER
 
 
               CONTRIBUTORS / COLLABORATEURS / 228
 
Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches Theatrales au Canada is
ppublished twice a year under a letter of agreement between the
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, University of Toronto, the
Association for Canadian Theatre Research, and Queen's
University.  It is edited at Brock University, McMaster
University, and l'Universite du Quebec a Montreal. The journal
publishes articles that use the full range of critical approaches
applied to the study of theatre as a multidisciplinary art, in
the context of the cultures of Canada and Quebec.
 
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