1 In Performing Autobiography Jenn Stephenson has produced a major, original study of autobiography and theatre. Although the sub-title indicates that Canadian drama is her focus, this study offers more than readings of Canadian plays. Stephenson presents a detailed, thoughtful analysis of what constitutes the autobiographical in prose memoir, biography, and live theatre. In addition to her set of illuminating discussions of selected plays, she examines the assumptions underlying autobiography, considers a wide range of autobiography theory, and demonstrates how pervasive this “fragile genre” is in contemporary culture.

2 Stephenson’s overview of the general theory of autobiography and the concepts of the key theorists is invaluable for readers new to this field. From early proponents like Philippe Lejeune to recent studies by Susanna Egan, Stephenson explains how the theory has developed through its application to texts beyond the customary diary, memoir, or prose autobiography. She also draws on the theories of Canadian scholars, such as Susan Bennett, Alan Filewod, Sherrill Grace, and Ric Knowles, and she pushes this theoretical work further to explore how autobiography works in live theatre performances. Of particular importance is her skillful application of this rich body of theory to drama, and this is her most original contribution to knowledge. Until very recently, few scholars have looked closely, and through theoretical lenses, at plays that probe the assumptions and complications of autobiography. Using her Canadian works as case studies, Stephenson does just that; the results are fascinating.

3 Some of the plays she chooses to study are predictable and essential for her argument: Perfect Pie, The Drawer Boy, Goodness, and Eternal Hydra. Other choices are surprising and all the more interesting for that. Few theatregoers or readers will know Timothy Findley’s last play Shadows, but it makes a superb case study. Still more surprising is Stephenson’s choice of Ronnie Burkett’s Billy Twinkle, but she makes a convincing argument for understanding the play in these terms. In her last full chapter, she tackles Daniel MacIvor’s In On It, for which this approach should come as a shock because one of the main characters is dead—or was until his ghost came back to act out his story! Of all the challenges to autobiography, this is the most daunting: a life story ends when the life does, when the first person narrator dies—right? Well, not exactly or entirely. At least not in the theatre and not in this play. Stephenson calls this chapter “Self-Authoring Characters in Recursive Autothanatography,” and she argues convincingly for this process in MacIvor’s play. As she explains, “theatre raises the dead through the repetition of sameness in a context of difference. The basic embodiment convention is a ghostly doubling that blends an animate actor with a non-living thing . . . to produce uncanny spectacle” (146). In other words, only in live performance can the autobiographical exceed the end of a life story.

4 Other gems to note are her nuanced examination of Perfect Pie, a play that eludes any decisive resolution or tidy conclusion; her analysis of witnessing in Goodness; and her attention to the ethical dilemmas raised by autobiography in Shadows. Perfect Pie is a recalcitrant play. It is powerful yet baffling, but Stephenson sets forth some possible readings through autobiography theory to unwrap the complexities. Although I remain unconvinced by any one reading, I find the interpretive journey she takes me on compelling; she opens up the play without claiming to solve its mysteries. Her discussion of witnessing trauma in the next chapter is, to my mind, the most important discussion in the book. We read a lot about trauma and witnessing today, and I think witnessing is a central ethical dimension in much contemporary literature and art. Therefore, I was especially pleased to read Stephenson’s discussion of Goodness as witnessing.

5 Through Goodness Stephenson articulates her concept of “performative witnessing,” which enables her to isolate and discuss the ethics of listening—as performed on stage or participated in by an audience—to someone’s life story. When this story involves torture and trauma, the secondary listening witness is placed in a challenging position and must respond IF, that is, he or she has entered into “the contract of testimony.” Much has been written in recent scholarship about trauma, witnessing, and testimony, but few scholars have brought these concepts together so precisely and no one, to my knowledge, uses them so well to illuminate how a play can exploit a performed strategy of witnessing to profound effect.

6 I read Stephenson’s discussion of Findley’s Shadows with particular interest. The play has only received one production (at Stratford in 2002) and has been published, but it is not well known. Neither is it an appealing play—Stephenson calls it a “bear pit” narrative of competitive story-telling, lies, revelations, and accusations. It is, however, vintage Findley and important for that reason alone. Using the tools of autobiography theory, Stephenson unfolds the ethical core of this play, which comes down to major questions in all autobiography: Whose story is this really? Who has the right to tell it? And what judgment should be made of an autobiographer who lies? Fictional autobiography is central in most of Findley’s work, and so are these ethical questions. As Stephenson argues, Shadows explores what happens—on stage and off—when “what we took to be ‘truth’ is actually another nested fiction”(78).

7 To conclude, Stephenson writes a “Coda” instead of a summary of her previous chapters. This is a refreshing way to wrap up a scholarly study because it allows her to engage our present as readers, theatregoers, and people living in the age of autobiography. Instead of concluding, she invites us to ponder other ways of performing autobiography and other uses for such performances, and she leaves us with some strategic questions about the possibility of transformation through autobiography and theatre as well as warnings about our expectations of this slippery and “fragile genre.” This is a splendid book that I recommend heartily.