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<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>As per Barbra French's/Don Rubin's gauntlet,
following are part of my introductory remarks for the ACTR/ARTC June 2, 1999
ESTABLISHING OUR BOUNDARIES: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism Panel Discussion
with Don Rubin, Malcolm Page, Don Perkins and Patrick O'Neill.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2><BR>What we are presenting here today are some
of the findings of a research project that began in 1988 with a successful
$50,000 one-year research grant application to SSHRC. In fact, it's taken 10
years to reach publication. We hope the wait has been worthwhile.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>I've been describing this project as the first
cultural history of Canada as seen through the eyes of 21 leading
English-Canadian theatre critics commenting on the creation of an indigenous
Canadian national theatre and drama over two centuries.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Our original 1988 SSHRC application listed 27
contributors from 17 universities and institutions across the country. Over
time, this slimmed down to 17 contributors at 12 universities. In 1996, the
University of Toronto Press contracted for "approximately 500 manuscript
pages." The Press eventually received 700 manuscript pages in what turned
out to be a 428 printed page collection. The book probably would not have been
published without the very strong support from readers (whose identity, except
for Richard Plant--quoted on the back cover jacket-- UTP is still refusing to
divulge to this day) and to the extensive research and publication assistance
acknowledged in the book.<BR> <BR>The basic premise about the cultural
data we wanted to analyze is quite simple and is stated in the opening paragraph
of <EM>Establishing Our Boundaries</EM>: "Canada's cultural history--from
colony to Dominion to independent nation--is mirrored in the pages of its
newspapers from the 1750s to the present. Newspapers and magazines have
reflected and shaped how we view and express ourselves--how we establish our
personal, collective, and political boundaries."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>According to Patrick, the first theatrical
notice in English appeared in newspapers in Halifax in 1773. Since then, theatre
critics have left us several hundred thousand reviews published in newspapers
and magazines across Canada over two centuries. These reviews often are the only
descriptive record left to cultural historians of theatre production in Canada.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>In our research application to SSHRC, we said we
would investigate who many of the major writers of these reviews were. That we
would analyze what their aesthetic, moral, sociological, political, and other
orientations were that affected and shaped their critical writing. We would look
at the varied personalities and cultural backgrounds of these critics to
determine how these affected their perception of--and commentary on--theatre
production in their communities. What was the specific chronological, geographic
and overall cultural and sociological context of the local theatre being
observed? How were reviews contextualized by the very publications in which they
appeared? And what could be learned from this cultural analysis over two
centuries about the development of Canadian theatre and drama, past, present,
and possibly future?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Our SSHRC research application suggested that
because of the lack of easily accessible, in-depth research on major critical
figures and periods in English-Canada's cultural history, that there was a
general public and academic misconception that there were no major
English-Canadian critics prior to 1945 and that the quality of past theatre
reviewing was generally poor and without critical standards. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>The "Social and Practical Importance"
section of our application suggested that the publication of essays resulting
from this research project would positively affect public recognition of the
cultural function of the critic in past and contemporary theatre production and
possibly would even positively affect the quality of critical writing by
Canadian theatre critics today.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>In 1996, for example, Brian Brennan published an
insightful article entitled "Confessions of an Unlettered Arts Critic"
in <EM>Deadlines and Diversity: Journalism Ethics in a Changing World
</EM>(Halifax: Fernwood Publishing). Brennan, critic for the <EM>Calgary Herald
</EM>from 1975 to 1988 and a former President of the Canadian Theatre Critics
Association, wrote not only about his own tenure at the <EM>Herald </EM>but of
theatre criticism in many other regions of Canada as well when critics were
writing with only a partial awareness of the full context of theatre criticism
as a discipline.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>He asserted that "during the 1970s, arts
criticism at many Canadian newspapers was practiced by persons without specific
training as critics, engaged in the business of conducting their education in
public...I could not in all honesty say I had what it took to be a competent
critic when I wrote my first theatre reviews for the <EM>Herald</EM>...when I
started, I had little more than my gut to rely on. My kind of criticism could
have been practised by almost anyone who had read a few plays and seen a few
productions. It consisted of allowing the waves of a performance to wash over
me, then analyzing the markings in the sand like some amateur fortuneteller
reading the tea leaves."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Brennan confessed that "I suspect I
may...have done harm with my early reviews, squelching promising talents while
trying to impress readers with my wit, intelligence and the fruits of my reading
list that week. Because criticism often has a direct and immediate effect on a
theatrical production, I fear some actors, directors and playwrights may have
had their careers damaged by my early reviews..."</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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