Theatre Research in Canada vol 15 no 1

[Robert Nunn]

Dear CANDRAMA subscribers:
     The editors are pleased to offer you a look at 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 1  SPRING / PRINTEMPS 1994
 
                       CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE
                   THEATRE RESEARCH IN CANADA
                 RECHERCHES THEATRALES AU CANADA
 
                         CELESTE DERKSEN
Out of the Closet:  Dramatic Works by Sarah Anne Curzon
Part One:  Woman and Nationhood: _Laura Secord, the Heroine of
1812_ / 3
 
Canadian modernist critics have tended to denigrate the works of
nineteenth-century closet dramatists, including Sarah Anne
Curzon.  In their own ideologically-laden "aesthetic"
evaluations, such critics have failed to attend to the historical
and ideological frameworks that underpin early literary-dramatic
practice.  This first of a two-part essay on the dramatic works
of Sarah Anne Curzon considers how the ideologies of gender and
nationhood are interwoven in _Laura Secord, The Heroine of 1812_ to
provide a scripting of nineteenth-century Canadian feminist
dramatic practice.
 
Les critiques modernistes au Canada ont eu tendance a denigrer
les oeuvres des auteurs de pieces de "theatre a lire" du 19e
siecle, dont celles de Sarah Anne Curzon.  Dans leurs evaluations
"esthetiques" ideologiquement chargees, ces critiques ne sont pas
parvenus a rendre compte des cadres historiques et ideologiques
qui soutiennent cette pratique litteraire et dramatique a ses
debuts.  Cette premiere partie d'un essai sur les oeuvres
dramatiques de Sarah Anne Curzon considere la maniere dont les
ideologies de genre et de nationalite sont entremelees dans _Laura
Secord, The Heroine of 1812_, de facon a proposer une ecriture qui
releve de la pratique dramatique feministe du dix-neuvieme siecle
au Canada.
 
                         REMI TOURANGEAU
             Les pageants historiques de scene comme
              medium du discours ideologique / 21
 
     This article is based on the author's recent publication,
_Fetes et spectacles du Quebec_, and presents the conclusions of a
comparative analysis of the _Pageant historique_ and _La Fabuleuse
Histoire d'un royaume_, first produced in 1938 and 1988
respectively in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.  In order to
study the social functions of these plays and the meanings they
convey, Remi Tourangeau uses a sociocritical method of the
"sociology of the text" type.  He explicates and applies a method
of analysis based on the study of the lexical, semantic and
syntactic levels of these dramatic texts.  Thus, he brings into
relief the evolution of a certain ideological discourse across a
network of sociolects and semantic isotopies and in the dualisms
in the language which subtend the paradigmatic axis of the
conquest of a country.  This demonstration of an analytical
method explicates the structural forms of these great spectacles
as effective media of communication.
 
     Cet article s'appuie sur le recent ouvrage de l'auteur,
_Fetes et spectacles du Quebec_, et presente les conclusions d'une
analyse comparative du_ Pageant historique_ et de _La Fabuleuse
Histoire d'un royaume_ : deux spectacles crees respectivement en
1938 et en 1988, dans la region du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Pour
etudier les fonctions sociales de ces spectacles et le sens dont
ils sont porteurs, Remi Tourangeau utilise une methode
sociocritique du type " sociologie du texte ". Il expose et
applique un modele d'analyse base sur l'etude des niveaux
lexical, semantique et syntaxique des textes dramatiques. Il fait
ainsi ressortir l'evolution d'un certain discours ideologique a
travers un reseau de sociolectes et d'isotopies semantiques et
dans le sens du dualisme du langage qui sous-tend l'axe
paradigmatique de la conquete du pays. Cette demonstration
explique les formes structurelles de ces spectacles a grands
effets en tant que medium de communication et, consequemment,
l'efficacite de ce medium.
 
 
                           RENEE HULAN
        Surviving Translation: _Forever Yours, Marie-Lou_ at
                     Tarragon Theatre / 48
 
The essay tests the accuracy of the assertion that _Forever Yours, Marie-
Lou_ survives its translation by following the development of the
translation from the translators' preliminary notes to the prompt script
provided for the 1972 Tarragon production and the final published
translation.  Comparisons of these layers chart the direct impact of
translation on the script with specific reference to how Marie-Lou and
Carmen are remoulded.  The essay concludes that, as the play was
translated, revised, and edited, it underwent a gradual yet appreciable
contextual erosion.
 
En comparant les diverses versions de _Forever Yours, Marie-Lou_, depuis
les premieres esquisses des traducteurs, jusqu'au texte utilise lors de la
production au Theatre Tarragon en 1972 et jusqu'a la version publiee apres
ces representations, cet article interroge la qualite de la traduction
anglaise de la piece surtout par rapport aux critiques de l'epoque qui ont
evalue que la piece avait survecu a sa traduction en anglais.  L'article
suggere en conclusion que le texte original a subi une erosion importante
tout au cours de ce processus de traduction, de revision et de publication.
 
                          JEANNE KLEIN
   Reading Empathy in a Quebecois Play: _Crying to Laugh_ / 58
 
To explore a continuum model of empathy, 88 children in grades one, three,
and five were interviewed about their emotional responses to _Crying to
Laugh_, a quebecois play designed to demonstrate emotional expression.
Girls and older children empathized and sympathized by feeling and
thinking from female characters' perspectives more than boys and younger
children.  Boys distanced themselves more than girls by focusing on their
personal desires and expectations.  Theatrical signs of presentational
plays may interfere with empathy by distracting young children from
identifying intended themes.
 
Afin d'explorer un modele d'empathie en continuum, 88 eleves de premiere,
troisieme et cinquieme annee du primaire ont ete interviewes sur leurs
reactions emotionnelles a _Pleurer pour rire_, une piece quebecoise concue
pour montrer l'expression des emotions.  Ce sont les fillettes et les
enfants plus ages, et non les garcons et les enfants plus jeunes, qui ont
manifeste de l'empathie et de la sympathie en pensant et en ressentant a
partir du point de vue des personnages feminins.  Les garcons, plus que
les filles, se sont distances en se concentrant sur leur propres desirs et
leurs attentes personnelles.  Les elements de theatralisation des
spectacles dit de presentation peuvent contrer les manifestations
d'empathie en empechant les jeunes enfants de s'identifier aux themes
traites.
 
                    RICHARD BRUCE KIRKLEY
               John Hirsch and the Critical Mass:
    Alternative Theatre on CBC Television in the 1970s / 75
 
This article examines John Hirsch's attempts to bring Canadian theatre
artists and stage plays to television during his tenure as Head of CBC
English Language Television Drama in the 1970s.  When the CBC appointed
John Hirsch, they gave him a strong mandate to strengthen the drama
department's relationship with Canadian theatre by bringing some of the
best plays and performances to television, and by recruiting new talent
from the theatre.  To fulfill this mandate, Hirsch initiated a bold,
comprehensive strategy; yet a series of historical forces, ranging from
financial and economic to cultural and aesthetic, made the full realization
of his strategy very difficult.  By examining the problems that confronted
Hirsch's theatre projects, this article will show how historical
circumstances specific to the 1970s impeded the success of the projects,
and will further suggest that more recent technological, structural and
cultural developments related to television production and reception may
have generated an environment more conducive to the achievement of
successful collaborations between theatre and television.
 
Cet article etudie les differentes tentatives de John Hirsch, pendant son
mandat comme Responsable du theatre de langue anglaise a la CBC, pour que
les artistes et les pieces du theatre canadien trouvent leur place dans la
programmation televisuelle pendant les annees soixant-dix.  Au moment de
sa nomination, on lui confie le mandat d'intensifier les rapports entre la
television et le theatre canadien en choissisant les meilleures pieces et
les spectacles les plus percutants pour les produire au petit ecran, et en
recrutant pour la television les nouveaux talents du theatre.  Hirsch met
alors sur pied une vaste et audacieuse strategie.  Pourtant, toute une
serie de difficultes, economiques mais aussi culturelles et esthetiques,
en ont rendu la realisation difficile.  En etudiant les problemes
rencontres par Hirsch, cet article montre comment des circonstances
historiques specifiques aux annees 70 ont empeche la reussite de ses
projets, et comment les developpements technologiques, structurels et
culturels des dernieres annees quant a la production et a la reception ont
sans doute engendre un milieu plus favorable aux collaborations
fructueuses entre le theatre et la television.
 
                      RICHARD BRUCE KIRKLEY
A Catalogue of Canadian Stage Plays on English Canadian
Television, 1952 to 1987 / 96
 
 
                 REVIEWS / COMPTES RENDUS / 109
Helen Peters, ed.,  _The Plays of CODCO_.
                        by MARK BLAGRAVE
_Les Vendredis du corps. Le corps de scene, vision plurielle_,
Essais, sous la coordination d'Aline Gelinas
                       par ALAIN FOURNIER
Keith Garebian, _George Bernard Shaw and Christopher Newton:
Explorations of Shavian Theatre_.
                        by J. PERCY SMITH
Mariel O'Neill-Karch,  _Theatre Franco-Ontarien:  Espaces
Ludiques_.
                        par TIBOR EGERVARI
 
               CONTRIBUTORS / COLLABORATEURS / 118
 
Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches Theatrales au Canada is
published 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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