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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Establishing Our Boundaries reviewed in Modern
Drama (Vol. XLIV, No. 1, Spring 2001) and l'Annuaire theatrale, No. 30, automne
2001.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(Neil Carson's review will appear in the Canadian
Theatre Review 109, Winter 2002.)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"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."<BR>--James Dugan,
Modern Drama</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.<BR>--Herve Guay, L'Annuaire
theatrale</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Previous reviews:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><BR>Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, Anton
Wagner, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>"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."<BR>--Mark Fisher, Glasgow Herald,
Scotland</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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." <BR>--Martin Morrow, The Calgary Herald</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."<BR>--Carol Douglass, American
Theatre Critics Association Critics Quarterly</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Reading it will expand anyone's knowledge of our culture, our theatre, and
our journalism."<BR>--Robert Fulford, The Globe and Mail</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."<BR>--Len Falkenstein, Canadian
Literature</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Destined to leave its mark on the history of criticism and Canadian
theatre and drama."<BR>--Geraldo Ferreira de Lima, A Gazeta, Cuiab ,
Brazil</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."<BR>--Kalina Stefanova, Theatre and
Kultura (Bulgaria)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Surprisingly lively and capacious." <BR>--Frank Moher, The National
Post</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."<BR>--Ian Herbert, Theatre Record, London</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"A gem . . . This is must reading for all of us--critics, artists and
spectator."<BR>--Gaetan Charlesbois, Hour, Montreal</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"If there is a book to make a reviewer nervous, it is this one."
<BR>--James Horner, Canadian Content</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"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."<BR>--Michael McKinnie, "The Contradictions of Canadian Theatre
Criticism," Essays on Canadian Writing</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>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. <BR>--Michele Vais,
"La critique passess au crible", Cahiers de theatre jeu</DIV>
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