Establishing Our Boundaries reviewed in University of Toronto Quarterly

[awagner]

Stephen Johnson's review of Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism appeared in "Letters in Canada: 1999," University of Toronto Quarterly 70:1, Winter 2000/2001, pp. 405-407.

Stephen writes in part that:

"The role of the theatre critic may be the most difficult to define...This book historicizes both their work and our opinion, delineating a tradition of theatre criticism in this country: that the pressure to sell papers affected the character of criticism no more or less in early nineteenth-century Halifax than in late millennial Toronto; that advocacy on behalf of a local (or national) culture has always battled with the forces of a North American 'show' business; and, from Joseph Howe to Ray Conlogue, that there has always been a divisive tension between  critic's own need to strike a specific and unchanging aesthetic position, and the pressure to allow for artistic freedom and communication between diverse cultures within the community...Anton Wagner has bought together some of this country's best theatre scholars...This will be an important work to anyone with an interest in Canadian theatre, and Canadian culture in general." 

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