Theatre Museum

Sat Feb 23 16:00:01 EST 2002

 Colleagues: f.y.i. in case you missed something significant in the pages of the NP.
Denis.

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            February 22, 2002

            Local theatre takes a bow
            History of Canadian stage comes from one who was there

            John Fraser
            National Post
            Herbert Whittaker is getting impatient, and if the rest of us are smart we will take this impatience seriously.

            Whittaker has been the drama critic emeritus of The Globe and Mail since 1975, which you might think was a crowded niche since there are at least four others who could claim that title (myself, Bryan Johnson, Ray Conlogue and Jack Kirchoff), but somehow "emeritus" seems powerful and elegant of my 90+-year-old predecessor and risible on the four of his successors.

            For nearly two decades, he has been campaigning for this country to take seriously its theatrical heritage. He is a man constructively obsessed with seeing the matter resolved before he is prepared to move on to the next act of his personal performance. Although he declines to be specific about the "+" that goes with his tenth decade, you don't tell a man at this age and with such a level of motivation to stay patient "a little while longer."

            Not only that, but the industrious nonagenarian and founding chairman of the Canadian Theatre Museum project has put together a wonderful small-scale exhibition of Toronto's theatre history, currently on view at the Elgin-Winter Garden theatre complex in Toronto. The aim is to show exactly how exciting and fascinating our theatre history is.

            Many of the exhibits come from Whittaker's private collection, all of which is being bequeathed to the museum. It includes posters, theatrical prints and, since the critic was also a director and designer, some of his original set designs. This is a man, after all, who directed the first production in Canada (Montreal, 1938) of Chekov's Uncle Vanya.

            To walk through a historical exhibition with a sharp and passionate man who was directing plays nearly 70 years ago is not an everyday experience. What impressed me most when I went with Whittaker two days ago was the comprehensiveness of his overview of Canadian theatre; he sees the entire course of the history allied to the notion of "independence" -- tied to his single-minded desire to make Canadians understand that their theatrical heritage is of more than passing interest.

            He wrote most of the exhibition's descriptive material, which is mounted on the walls, arranged the dramatic format that takes you from travelling road shows and stock companies to the lively current scene, arranged the surprises like the tiny perfect model of the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres that has its own miniature light show, and kept the theme of growing independence foremost.

            "I don't agree with you at all," he said when I mistakenly suggested there had been a recent decline in Toronto's theatrical scene. "All the big musicals are produced locally, which is a much better situation than used to exist. The alternative theatres are into a new mode of consolidation and when they don't have their own productions, others make use of their spaces. That's the point of this exhibition. We used to be a touring town. Now we are an indigenous theatre town and one of the best anywhere, able to mount local and international productions from our own resources."

            There are small and delightfully idiosyncratic Whittaker touches in the exhibition that amused me mightily. At one point, in a fascinating display of theatre posters and pictures of leading internationally renowned actors, an advisory notice challenges the viewer to spot the Canadians. Being a Trivial Pursuit nut, I was soon absorbed in showing off my superb knowledge:

            "Oh, Chris Plummer of course," I said to Whittaker, who followed me around with a bemused look as I tried to show off my superior knowledge. "And that's Robert Goulet, of course, and Raymond Massey. And, and, and that's William Shatner ..."

            The great man smiled. "It's not that hard to figure out," he said. "I put all the Canadians in silver frames." Right! And there was Beatrice Lilly and Mary Pickford and John Colicos and Gratien Gelinas and on and on. What a surprising number of Canadians have shone on the international circuit, and all of them, more or less, groomed and trained on local stages.

            Whittaker's grand scheme envisions theatre museums across the country, because every region has its own distinctive and fascinating history. A feasibility study was done in the 1980s by Ann Saddlemyer, the former Master of Massey College and professor at the University of Toronto's Graduate Drama Centre. The idea of a chain of small but cleverly run theatre museums was not only feasible, it made a lot of sense since exhibitions could travel between them. Whittaker realized, though, that the Toronto contingent better get on with its own project, as it could be a model for the rest of the country.

            The current chair of the project is Margaret McBurney, the first woman president of the Toronto Arts and Letters Club. Whittaker says she is a "miracle worker." It appears there may be a permanent location available soon.

            "I tell people I want to be here to see it," he said. His animation and vigour are their own wonder to behold. At about this moment in our ramble, I realized I was with someone who had met every single person singled out in this historic exhibition, with the possible exception of William Shakespeare, but then he only appears because of local productions of Hamlet and King Lear, both touring and indigenous, including his own version of Lear set in the High Arctic.

            The Theatre Museum: Our Heritage is on view through to mid-May in the Palladium Lounge Gallery at Toronto's Elgin-Winter Garden theatre complex at Yonge and Queen streets.

            ja.fraser at utoronto.ca

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                  Other Stories by this Writer 

--------------------------------------------------------------

                  12/28/2001 -  Ottawa delivers two great talents 
                  8/29/2001 -  He understood what it meant to be chief 
                  8/22/2001 -  The examined life is certainly worth reading 
                  8/15/2001 -  Let all enlightened readers get their subscriptions today 
                  8/8/2001 -  Vanity Fair revives a fine poet 

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'If we rule the world together then we can succeed in peace and let each other be different and have different opinions and different cultures. If there was no diversity then life would be boring. Imagine me looking exactly like you or acting the same way! LIFE NEEDS difference and until we realise it then we will not achieve our hope of world peace!"-Natasha Salter, written on the occasion of her 11th birthday (20 November 01).

***************************************
Denis Salter
Professor of Theatre
McGill University
853 Sherbrooke St West
Montréal 
H3A 2T6

T: (514) 398 6573
F: (514) 398 8146
E: <d.salter at videotron.ca>
    <denis.salter at mcgill.ca>

Home Office
4965, avenue Connaught
Notre Dame De Grace
Montréal
H4V 1X4

T: (514) 487 2568
F via Email:  (309) 294 0444
E: <d.salter at videotron.ca>
    <denis.salter at mcgill.ca>

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/english/english.html

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