Establishing Our Boundaries reviews

[Deborah Cottreau]

Congratulations one and all.  An impressive set of responses.
Deborah Cottreau

awagner wrote:

> Establishing Our Boundaries reviewed in Modern Drama (Vol. XLIV, No.
> 1, Spring 2001) and l'Annuaire theatrale, No. 30, automne 2001. (Neil
> Carson's review will appear in the Canadian Theatre Review 109, Winter
> 2002.)  "Establishing Our Boundaries is an altogether informative and
> stimulating book. It covers the topic from sea to sea and from the
> beginnings to the present...This book is a major contribution to
> Canadian theatre history in an often scorned and rarely studied
> arena."
> --James Dugan, Modern Drama Dans la diversite des approches,
> Establishing Our Boundaries documente avec soin un aspect fondamental
> de l'art dramatique, a savoir sa reception, dans ce qu'elle a de
> decisive pour l'avenir d'un theatre souvent en butte a l'indifference
> generale. Par l'ampleur de ses perspectives temporelles et
> geographiques, l'ouvrage pourrait eventuellement servir de modele a un
> tour d'horizon de la critique quebecoise, qui mettrait en perspective
> les liens complexes qu'entretiennent critique, public et milieu, liens
> determinants pour une tradition theatral encore jeune.
> --Herve Guay, L'Annuaire theatrale  Previous reviews:
> Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, Anton
> Wagner, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999
> "A fascinating premise. By considering the output of 21 drama critics,
> it attempts to construct a cultural history of Canada from 1829 to the
> present day . . . an excellent collection of essays."
> --Mark Fisher, Glasgow Herald, Scotland "Wagner and his contributors
> have rounded up an intriguing cast of characters . . . As this
> valuable volume demonstrates, the true critics, for all their foibles
> and quirks, have brought a passionate urgency to their belief in the
> value of theatre that no amount of cheery promotional copy will ever
> be able to duplicate."
> --Martin Morrow, The Calgary Herald "Brilliant analytical essays . . .
> Boundaries is a uniquely informing, always interesting, book on a
> universal subject: cultural identity and the forces that form and are
> influenced by it."
> --Carol Douglass, American Theatre Critics Association Critics
> Quarterly "Reading it will expand anyone's knowledge of our culture,
> our theatre, and our journalism."
> --Robert Fulford, The Globe and Mail "Establishing Our Boundaries is
> an undeniably valuable addition to Canadian theatre history
> scholarship, helpfully and insightfully illuminating one of the most
> important, yet overlooked, elements of the complex system of cultural
> production that is English-Canadian theatre."
> --Len Falkenstein, Canadian Literature "Destined to leave its mark on
> the history of criticism and Canadian theatre and drama."
> --Geraldo Ferreira de Lima, A Gazeta, Cuiab , Brazil "Shutting the
> book Establishing Our Boundaries, one feels like one has lived for two
> centuries in the Northern part of North America and has witnessed the
> different stages, nuances and faces of the very painful, difficult and
> extremely adamant search for a feeling of belonging, or in other
> words, for a national consciousness of the people who have really
> lived there throughout all that time. It's exciting that this process
> could be followed exactly through the development of the theatre and
> criticism."
> --Kalina Stefanova, Theatre and Kultura (Bulgaria) "Surprisingly
> lively and capacious."
> --Frank Moher, The National Post "A very thorough set of essays . . .
> a revealing picture of the gradual emergence of a truly national
> theatre for English Canada through the eyes of those who chronicled
> it."
> --Ian Herbert, Theatre Record, London "A gem . . . This is must
> reading for all of us--critics, artists and spectator."
> --Gaetan Charlesbois, Hour, Montreal "If there is a book to make a
> reviewer nervous, it is this one."
> --James Horner, Canadian Content "Establishing Our Boundaries could
> provoke a stimulating debate in Canadian theatre studies; it is not
> only, as the collection suggests, a matter of what kind of criticism
> and theatre we want, but what kind of history we want as well."
> --Michael McKinnie, "The Contradictions of Canadian Theatre
> Criticism," Essays on Canadian Writing C'est donc sur toute une
> tradition riche et meconnue que l'ouvrage dirige par Anton Wagner leve
> le voile. A travers elle, on comprend mieux les enjeux fondamentaux,
> non seulement du theatre canadien-anglais, mais aussi de toute une
> culture qui nous est proche. Soutenu par une recherche titanesque sur
> un corpus eparpille dans des milliers et des milliers d'articles,
> Establishing Our Boundaries est propre a donner une credibilite a un
> metier periodiquement bien malmene. En terminant la lecture de cet
> ouvrage stimulant, je ne puis que souhaiter pour le Quebec une etude
> semblable: qu'une cohorte de chercheurs dans un de nos departements
> d'etudes theatrales ou de litterature se penche sur le corpus de la
> critique theatrale quebecoise et qu'en attendant, l'ouvrage dirige par
> Anton Wagner fasse l'objet d'une traduction francaise.
> --Michele Vais, "La critique passess au crible", Cahiers de theatre
> jeu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20020225/47748041/attachment.html>