Fw: Extended boundaries

[Anton Wagner]

Following is the first newspaper review of Establishing Our Boundaries:
English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, written by Mark Fisher, chief theatre
critic of The Herald in Scotland. Based in Glasgow, The Herald is Scotland's
leading quality newspaper and is one of Britain's oldest and most
distinguished daily newspapers. Established in 1783, it has served the
people of Scotland for more than 200 years and is the oldest English
language daily newspaper in the world. Its website is www.theherald.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Fisher <fisher at easynet.co.uk>
To: Anton Wagner <awagner at YORKU.CA>
Date: Monday, July 05, 1999 4:46 AM
Subject: Extended boundaries


Hi Anton,

I got hold of a review copy of Establishing Our Boundaries from your
publishers at your suggestion - and enjoyed it tremendously.

Below is a copy of my article which will be published in The Herald
(Scotland) tomorrow (5/7/99). I'll send a copy of the printed version to
Alyssa Stuart:


THE theatre gets the critics it deserves. This might raise an eyebrow from
those who believe critics to be an unaccountable blight on the side of an
honourable profession, but like it or lump it, the theatre industry is
inextricably linked with those who comment on it. The job of the theatre
reviewer is reactive. It can't happen without people putting on plays. It is
those plays, taken in tandem with the cultural context, that shape and
determine the nature of the criticism, and in turn, the nature of the
critics.

This is true of all the arts, but of theatre in particular. Theatre takes
place on such a localised level - in this building, this street, this city,
this country - that those who write about it can only be sensitive to the
context in which it happens. How can they be otherwise, when they are part
of that context themselves? An intelligent critic might have something to
say about this context, but even the most visionary critic is in no position
to ignore it.

Is this too deterministic a viewpoint? Can theatre really be blamed for the
faults and foibles of those who write about it? Should critics not be
free-floating spirits dedicated to the abstract ideals of artistic purity,
unsullied by the mediocre business of the real-life stage? Isn't that what
Kenneth Tynan meant when he said that a good drama critic is "one who
perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time", while a great drama
critic "also perceives what is not happening"? I don't think so. Even
Tynan's great critic would be a reactionary; in this case, he'd be reacting
against an absence. None of us can step aside from the world we're in.

Tynan is himself a good example. That he was a brilliant stylist and a
penetrating commentator is without question, notably in his time at The
Observer between 1954 and 1963, but it's hard to imagine anyone paying him
much attention had he not lived through thrilling theatrical times. He was
there for Samuel Beckett, Peter Brook, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Joan
Littlewood, Ralph Richardson, and so on, and so on. He might have championed
these artists, might even have influenced them, but he didn't invent them.
It was the cultural climate that was exciting, and people turned either to
Tynan or to Harold Hobson, his rival on The Sunday Times, to check the
cultural barometer. Tynan had the good fortune to be in the right place when
the weather turned.

To put the theory to the test, you can do no better than seek out an
excellent collection of essays just published in Canada called Establishing
Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism (edited by Anton Wagner,
University of Toronto Press, not published in the UK, but available through
internet booksellers Amazon, www.amazon.co.uk, for £45). It starts from 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. We learn as much about the state of the nation from the prejudices and
reoccupations of the critics as we do from the work they were considering-
the two things are inseparable.

You don't need an interest in theatre to find this engaging. Anyone
concerned with the way Scotland has fashioned an identity for itself, for
example, will find compelling parallels in the story of Canada, for so many
years a country subject to the whims of the British Empire on the one hand,
and the United States on the other. This is reflected directly in the
material that was presented on Canadian stages and in the way it was
considered by the critics. Until the middle of this century, the theatre of
Canada was dominated by the commercial interests of the USA (New York
producers recognised no borders on their map of North America) and the Old
World values of London, exporting high-status productions of Shakespeare
endorsed by a long theatrical tradition. Pity the poor critic who reported,
as recently as 1948, that of the 300-plus shows he'd seen in his first
two-and-a-half years, only four had been written by Canadians. How to
comment on a distinctive Canadian culture when it existed as a theoretical
ideal more than a practical reality?

Under Anton Wagner's editorship, the book's contributors are relentless in
their mission to pin down the hidden values and assumptions behind each
critic's writings. This is no hagiography. It points out the weak points of
the most celebrated critics. Even those credited with making a tangible
difference to the theatrical landscape are variously seen as holding racist,
patrician, or imperialist opinions, and at least one is accused of operating
on the basis of grudge and personal favour. But again, these attitudes were
part of the culture at large - if a reviewer allowed himself to be
influenced by a theatre's advertising deal with his newspaper, we can learn
a lot about the cultural beliefs and expectations of his era. In that case,
we can assume the theatre got exactly the critic it deserved.

If my argument holds up, what can we learn about the theatre of New York if
the critic it deserved was Frank Rich? Hot Seat (Random House, USA,
available from Amazon at £22.45) is an anthology of Rich's criticism from
the New York Times where he was chief drama critic from 1980-1993. Writing
for the one publication that counted when it came to making or breaking a
show, Rich was dubbed "the Butcher of Broadway" for the viciousness of his
reviews and the power they wielded. With this in mind, it's something of a
disappointment to find in the 1000 pages of this book not a blood-thirsty
psychopath, but a genuine theatre enthusiast blessed with a forthright
journalistic style.

I can't comment on the allegations against him of cronyism or of power going
to his head, neither seems evident in this collection. What is more apparent
is the narrowness of his coverage. Mainstream to the last, he can afford but
two brief mentions of the avant garde Wooster Group in the whole book, and
there is little indication of him venturing beyond the Great White Way, let
alone New York. Of greater concern is that any critic, not Rich in
particular, should be allowed so much influence. Surely this is a reflection
on the commercial imperatives of Broadway, a system of extremes that needs
its runaway hits to pay for its miserable flops, with no room
for manoeuvre in between.
ENDS

All the best

- Mark

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~fisher/