Anthology of Québec Women's Plays in English Translation, 1966-1986
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Includes Savage Season by Anne Hébert; Playing Double by Françoise Loranger; Mine Sincerely by Marie Savard; Evangeline the Second by Antonine Maillet; Ocean by Marie-Claire Blais; A Clash of Symbols by Luce Guilbeault, Nicole Brossard, Frances Theoret et al.; The Fairies are Thirsty by Denise Boucher; Mummy by Louisette Dussault; The Edge of the Earth is Too Near, Violette Leduc by Jovette Marchessault; Marie-Antoine, Opus One by Lise Vaillancourt; and Night by Marie Laberge.
The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature
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From Aboriginal writing to Margaret Atwood, this is a complete English-language history of Canadian writing in English and French from its beginnings. The multi-authored volume pays special attention to works from the 1960s and after, to multicultural and indigenous writing, popular literature, and the interaction of anglophone and francophone cultures throughout Canadian history. Established genres such as fiction, drama and poetry are discussed alongside forms of writing which have traditionally received less attention, such as the essay, nature-writing, life-writing, journalism, and comics, and also writing in which the conventional separation between genres has broken down, such as the poetic novel. Written by an international team of distinguished scholars, the volume includes a separate, substantial section discussing major genres in French, as well as a detailed chronology of historical and literary/cultural events, and an extensive bibliography covering criticism in English and French.
Canadian Theatre History
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A collection of original documents and publications by Canadian theatre professions and cultural commentators.
Establishing Our Boundaries
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>Establishing Our Boundaries is a cultural history of Canada as seen through the eyes of twenty-one of English Canada's leading theatre critics commenting on the creation of an indigenous Canadian national theatre and drama over two centuries. Canadians have always had an intense relationship to the theatre. As Canada has transformed from colony to Dominion to independent nation, the development of a national theatre and the public responses to it have both reflected and affected how we know ourselves. Eighteen essays, written by top scholars in the field, cover the range of influential English-language theatre reviewing from 1829 to 1998, and from Vancouver to Halifax. The word 'critic,' refers primarily to newspaper columnists. The criticism under scrutiny here-much of it only available on microfiche-is generally short (ten column inches) and reflects an immediate, often heated response to the show. Some longer pieces, Hector Charlesworth's (1890-1945) and B.K. Sandwell's (1932-51) work at Saturday Night, are also examined. The editor's extensive introductory essay explains the cultural context for the material considered and suggests a current crisis in criticism. A forceful and provoking tradition of theatre criticism in Canada developed long before Nathan Cohen's outspoken voice called attention to it-of course his confident and controversial work is given a full treatment here. The call for an indigenous theatre arose simultaneously with the proliferation of Canadian newspapers. Patrick O'Neill's meticulously thorough essay 'From Puffery to Criticism- William Lyon Mackenzie, Joseph Howe and Daniel Morrison: Theatre Criticism in Halifax and Toronto 1826-1857' discusses both the status of journalism and the instrumental roles those three played in creating an actual theatre criticism. Issues such as the creation of colourful personae and the implicated nature of criticism are broached by Douglas Arrell. Gina Mallet's iconoclastic and at times incendiary columns in the Toronto Star, appearing between 1976 and 1984, get an admirably sharp review by Alan Filewod. In 'Establishing Contact between Two Cultures: Marianne Ackerman at the Montreal Gazette 1983-87,' Leanore Lieblein offers a sensitive analysis of francophone / anglophone relations. Robert Nunn speculates on the tricky border between traditionalism and postmodernism in the work of Ray Conlogue at the Globe and Mail. Chapters look at the influence of critics, both on a local and national level, who have held sway over the past 172 years at the Novascotian; the York Colonial Advocate; the Toronto Daily Leader, Mail, Globe, Globe and Mail and Toronto Star; the Montreal Herald and Gazette; Manitoba Free Press, Winnipeg Daily Tribune and Winnipeg Town Topics; as well as the Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, Saturday Night, Canadian Tribune, and the Canadian Theatre Review. The essays on the critics writing for these publications analyse their attempts to stimulate an indigenous Canadian theatre and drama, and their views on religious, moral and political issues, censorship, cultural colonialism and cultural nationalism, government support of the arts, English-French cultural relations, Canadian national, regional, and minority identities, and the preponderant influence of American popular culture on Canadian artistic creation. Anton Wagner, in amassing this impressive collection, has drawn on his unique combination of practical experience as a producer, an academic background, and political involvement in Canadian theatre in order to meet his mission statement: 'To fill a significant gap in our knowledge of Canadian cultural history.'
Feminist Theatre and Performance
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Sets out to make the best critical and scholarly work in the field readily available.
Indigenous North American Drama
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Traces the historical dimensions of Native North American drama using a critical perspective.
The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre
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The past twenty years have seen an extraordinary and exciting growth in Canadian theater. Today, 200 professional theater companies span the country and more than 10,000 published plays appear in bibliographies. The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre is the first reference book to document the growth and development of Canadian drama and theater in English and French--from its beginnings to the present day. The book offers 680 entries written by 155 contributors that provide biographies of actors, playwrights, directors, and designers; major theaters, including 19th-century theaters, and companies; major plays; and numerous miscellaneous subjects such as collective theater, design, directing, ethnic theater, musical theater, radio and television drama, and local theater. The result of almost four years' research, this authoritative reference offers a wealth of fascinating and important information, as well as over 200 beautiful illustrations.
Performing Autobiography
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In Performing Autobiography, Jenn Stephenson presents an innovative new approach to autobiography studies that links the growing field of research to drama. Stephenson's analysis engages with performance histories to demonstrate the extent to which the dramatic form, which recasts autobiography as ambiguously fictive, ensures that the experience of the plays remains open to revision, alteration, and interpretation. As such, Performing Autobiography understands this form not to be the impossible documentation of the backward-looking narrative of one's life, but rather an evolving process of self-creation and transformation. Stephenson explores the autobiographical form by analysing seven works by Canadian playwrights written and performed between 1999 and 2009, including Judith Thompson's Perfect Pie, Daniel MacIvor's In On It, and Timothy Findley's Shadows. Her analysis encourages us to see autobiography as a uniquely political act, one that, where enacted on stage, illustrates the variety of ways that self-reflection and interpretation has an expanding role in contemporary culture.