ROSALIND KERR
Co-editors Diana Brydon and Irene Makaryk's claims to offer multi-faceted critically challenging perspectives on the history and reception of Shakespeare in Canada are amply fulfilled in the seventeen diverse chapters reflecting Shakespeare "as cultural icon, exemplary script, or infinitely adaptable medium for local selfexpression" (Preface xi). Indeed, Makaryk's opening chapter outlining the scope of the selections succeeds perhaps too well in problematizing her own question as to whether Canada has been able to recreate a "Shakespeare" that reflects its particular image or simply reinvents our colonial past. As she points out, the chronological arrangement of the chapters grouped into four parts is intended to set up an open-ended dialogue between past and present. A brief commentary on each of the chapters will give the reader some sense of the range of materials that Brydon and Makaryk have included in order to facilitate the debate.
Part 1 traces the history of the institutionalizing of various Shakespearean sites, and leaves no doubt as to the prominence accorded to Toronto as the cultural capital of imperialist Canada. Chapter 1 begins with Heather Murray's account of Henry Scadding's display of Shakespearean artifacts at the 1892 Toronto Exhibition as evidence of the central importance attached to Shakespeare's civilizing role in pioneer Ontario. Next, Karen Bamford follows the dramatic activities pursued by the Shakespeare Society of Toronto from 1928 to 1969 to demonstrate middle-class WASP aspirations to preserve British culture through its most prominent icon. Marta Straznicky's Chapter 3 traces the unquestioned popularity of CBC Shakespeare radio broadcasts from 1947-55 as proof of his hold on mainstream culture. Margaret Groome offers a fitting final chapter that discusses how the establishment of the Stratford Festival ensconced Shakespeare as English Canada's cultural arbiter.
Part 2 expands into an examination of Shakespearean productions from across the country in order to query how accurately these might reflect the ongoing, if regionally diverse, ideological concerns of Canadian audiences. C.M. McGee's Chapter 5 examines mixed audience responses to the attempts of several Stratford productions to Canadianize content by the insertion of various geographic, historical and ethnic references. Next Jessica Schagerl looks at Stratford's many productions of Hamlet from 1957 to 1994 only to conclude that none of them has served as a vehicle for confirming Canadian identity. Leanore Lieblein's chapter provides an overview of the major trends in Francophone Quebec productions since WW II to show how closely they reflect changes in the political climate as they shift from universalizing "Le grand Will," to having him speak for Quebec nationalism and, most recently, for multiculturalism. In Chapter 8, Peter Ayres speculates that the 400-year history of Shakespeare productions, often in strikingly picturesque settings, attests to his ongoing relevance for Newfoundlanders. Next, Michael McKennie grapples with the effects which Richard Rose's partially cross-gendered casting and innovative staging of King Lear in 1995 had on challenging Torontonian attitudes about gender equity concerns.
Part 3 brings together an eclectic mix of ongoing critical debates from established scholars to introduce various theoretical approaches to Shakespeare. A.B. Dawson uses two contrasting UBC productions to problematize Canadian actor training.While devoting most of his attention to praising Neil Freeman's traditional text-based method, he also toys with the possibilities of training actors in more Brechtian techniques which might challenge the dated approach of most acting schools with their emphasis on teaching students how to create universal characters. Next, Paul Yachnin and Brent E. Whitted suggest that varied Canadian contributions to the arcane question of Shakespearean authorship reflect a growing sense of our independence vis-à-vis both Britain and the USA. In chapter 12, Alexander Leggatt reads Cymbeline through the peculiarly Canadian tropes of wilderness, empire and identity in an attempt to transcend our uncertain nationalism by suggesting positive ways to interpret our multi-vocality. Finally, L.M. Findlay's guarded tribute to Frye's seminal contribution to Canadian Shakespearean scholarship ends with the suggestion that scholars today need to expand the model to provide a new anatomy that recognizes our postcolonial condition.
Part 4 introduces postmodern approaches to the debate by looking at ways in which various manipulations of text and image are producing new expressions of cultural identities. Daniel Fischlin theorizes that the particularly rich and varied Canadian tradition of adaptation demonstrates the existence of a range of counter-canonical responses to any perceived national hegemony. In Chapter 15, Mark Fortier problematizes adaptation in five different texts, arguing that such alterations bring forth romantic complexities and foreground the unseen presence of the past. Next, Lois Sherlow grapples with the intricate web of references informing Normand Chaurette's Les Reines (1991), a surrealist verse play featuring the voices of six royal and usually unheard women connected with Richard III. Rather than being informed by a postmodern Francophone Quebec sensibility, she concludes, its discursive subversions gesture ultimately to a modernist affirmation of the enduring presence of the tragic. In the final chapter, Ric Knowles compares three diverse adaptations of Othello to show that their various engagements with the discourses of class, ethnicity, gender and race amply demonstrate that these have become well-established discursive practices across Canadian theatre today.
Diana Brydon's concluding chapter reiterates the many complex issues that have been raised, and bookends Irene Makaryk's opening, without really moving the debate to a new place. In her words, "[i]n Canadian cultural history, as this volume demonstrates, the contradictions set up among imperial, global, national, and regional Shakespeares are charged with the ambivalences of a particular experience of colonialism" (405). While acknowledging that we must be ever watchful about serving the cause of cultural imperialism, Brydon feels that the volume serves the more important purpose of tapping into Shakespeare's "emancipatory potential" (409). She suggests that the emancipation for Canadians lies in the reflections we can find of the ways in which Shakespearean traditions have been "recalibrated to meet the needs of specific communities within diverse Canadian localities" (409). As the first of its kind, there is no doubt that this volume is a must for all serious Canadian Shakespearean scholars who wish to know where we have been and where we might be going. Nonetheless, I think it is important to note that, except for a few articles pushing for change, the recalibrated Canadian Shakespeare we meet in this volume appears not to exist apart from his entrenchment in central Canadian institutions. Maybe Jessica Schagerl's Appendix, which offers scholars helpful information about research opportunities, will help to rectify this situation.