Establishing Our Boundaries reviews

[awagner]

Establishing Our Boundaries reviewed in Modern Drama (Vol. XLIV, No. 1, Spring 2001) and l'Annuaire theatrale, No. 30, automne 2001.

(Neil Carson's review will appear in the Canadian Theatre Review 109, Winter 2002.)


"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."
--James Dugan, Modern Drama

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.
--Herve Guay, L'Annuaire theatrale


Previous reviews:


Establishing Our Boundaries: English-Canadian Theatre Criticism, Anton Wagner, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999


"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."
--Mark Fisher, Glasgow Herald, Scotland

"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." 
--Martin Morrow, The Calgary Herald

"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."
--Carol Douglass, American Theatre Critics Association Critics Quarterly

"Reading it will expand anyone's knowledge of our culture, our theatre, and our journalism."
--Robert Fulford, The Globe and Mail

"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."
--Len Falkenstein, Canadian Literature

"Destined to leave its mark on the history of criticism and Canadian theatre and drama."
--Geraldo Ferreira de Lima, A Gazeta, Cuiab , Brazil

"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."
--Kalina Stefanova, Theatre and Kultura (Bulgaria)

"Surprisingly lively and capacious." 
--Frank Moher, The National Post

"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."
--Ian Herbert, Theatre Record, London

"A gem . . . This is must reading for all of us--critics, artists and spectator."
--Gaetan Charlesbois, Hour, Montreal

"If there is a book to make a reviewer nervous, it is this one." 
--James Horner, Canadian Content

"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."
--Michael McKinnie, "The Contradictions of Canadian Theatre Criticism," Essays on Canadian Writing

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. 
--Michele Vais, "La critique passess au crible", Cahiers de theatre jeu


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