FRANCESS G. HALPENNY
This is an excellent book, on several counts. It is based on thorough scholarship in the extensive papers of Dora Mavor Moore and the New Play Society in the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto, in the newspapers and periodicals of the years covered (especially the reviews of theatre), in the research literature that is accumulating on theatre in Canada in the 20th century, and in Mavor Moore's memoirs Reinventing Myself. The author acquired a good grasp of the social and cultural contexts in which Mrs. Moore's career developed, and by which much in that career is explicable, and she portrays it well. Her book also adds a great deal to our knowledge of an important foundational period in the creation of post-war theatre in Canada as it finally began to move out of reliance on theatre from elsewhere and on avowedly amateur or little theatre at home. Dr. Sperdakos' account of these times has the form of a biography, centred on a dynamic figure, a figure who has caught her imagination, understanding, and admiration. Mrs. Moore comes alive in her determination, courage, dedication; in her strengths and her limitations; in her effect upon the hundreds whom she taught or worked with. The book is very readable, in straightforward prose. This reader, who knows much of the period since the late thirties personally, read on with keen interest to the end and has been caught up since in many reflections upon the meaning of that period. It comes to this: if one is to understand the full significance of events such as the founding of the Stratford Festival in 1953 or the Canada Council in 1957 or the National Theatre School in 1960 or university and school drama programs--and all their accompaniments--one must have an informed appreciation of what went before. This book is an important contribution to that appreciation.
In the space available, I can only point to certain aspects of the biographical account which seem to me to connect in a significant manner. Dora Mavor Moore's early life as it is presented here (pre and post World War I) certainly provides clues for her later professional activities and ultimately her legacy: Her father's reputation and position at the University of Toronto and her family's place in a solid social context in Toronto early provided a background of associations that in one way held her back from a professional acting career in the theatre, but in another way continued to support her as she developed her impressive capacities for teaching adults and young people. That background later brought her loyal friends for her theatre work. Dora had a presence. The drama traditions she early knew and followed--the stress on speech (not elocution) at the Margaret Eaton School; the simple and direct staging of Shakespeare learned as an actress with the Ben Greet Players; the repertoire she both played and taught (Shakespeare, classics of English poetry, She Stoops to Conquer, Everyman); the mission of the Abbey Theatre and its plays--all of these were to be part of what she attempted later. There were models of consequence.
The story of the Village Players (1938-c. 1946) is linked. The initial group of young people came together to do Shakespeare, and they did it for the schools. They learned deportment of the stage, they learned qualities of speech, they learned Shakespeare's lessons of character. And they learned respect for the craft of theatre. Theatre was serious; it was not for shallow or frivolous self-display. In the group, encouraged subtly by Mrs. Moore, many of them found, personally, a self-fulfilment and confidence and shared interests that they had not found in their schools. As Dr. Sperdakos shows, these qualities were always those elicited by Dora's good teaching experiences, first to last; she aimed for them. The account of her work with mental patients at Whitby, 1955-56, for instance, is a memorable passage.
Circumstances of war, and Dora's barn theatre, turned the Village Players to small-scale production. They were to begin explorations of repertoire that attracted audience and critical response. In 1945 and 1946 the bill included Tennessee Williams, Saroyan, J.B. Priestley and--new names for Canada--Brecht and Lorca; Mrs. Moore herself at Victoria College introduced The Skin of Our Teeth to Toronto. This programming is a background for Mrs. Moore's bold, and risky, decision to take the stage of the Royal Ontario Museum Theatre as a venue for the New Play Society, to be a professional company.
A long section of Dr. Sperdakos' book is given to the four initial seasons of NPS 1946-1950, the years for which, as she says, it is "best remembered." Here the biographical content for Dora fades, perhaps because the available records make it hard to distinguish just what she herself was doing in the unrelenting pace of arrangements and production of over forty plays. She was, of course, working in association with Mavor. The repertoire picks up the thread of the farther and immediate past--the first offering is Playboy from the Irish theatre, and the following titles show the high seriousness of choice; from Strindberg to Shaw to Molière to the Coventry Nativity, to Shakespeare, Sheridan, O'Casey, Ibsen. My own memories are still vivid of The Circle, Ah Wilderness, Candida, The Little Foxes, Saroyan's The Time of Your Life, Heartbreak House. This was impressive fare, and the performers and directors who came from CBC radio for it helped to make much of it work. In the final series of plays (Sept. 1949 - May 1950) were no fewer than five original Canadian plays, inclusions Dora and Mavor had earnestly aimed for. But what Dr. Sperdakos calls the "creative risk-taking" of the NPS met its match in this series: a breathless rush of challenging classics, and new and untried plays, culminating in the epic scope of Riel followed two weeks later by Lear with Mavor playing both leads. Along with what was attempted and accomplished, one has to remember the serious drawbacks: trying and short rehearsal schedules; a cramping stage, house, and backstage; a handicapped production back-up; and finances that were never adequate. (The personal sacrifices of Dora and her family to drama and the theatre over all the years are witness to the demands of what she and Mavor attempted.) This chapter repays close study. It could lead, for instance, to a fruitful exploration of what the term "professional" means to what people and when.
Against this chapter, the happening at Stratford in 1953, helped by Dora, takes on new meaning. The festival is in its own place, designed in scale and style for its work; it gets for its actors appropriate rehearsal time and behind them the technical staff that enables them to concentrate on acting; its production values are high; it has runs that solidify performance. Sights are raised. The theatres that come after in the 50s, 60s, and 70s must also work in these directions. But let us go back to the expectations of repertoire the NPS created for audiences in its high years: does not the repertoire of Stratford and Shaw, and of other respected companies across the country, in its mix of classic and contemporary, show reflections? A tradition? The NPS too tried Canadian plays, without the means to workshop and revise; we are still today trying to perfect this process.
I have touched on only a few of the aspects of this study, of this long story. Here is Robertson Davies in his convocation presentation of Dora in 1970: "if . . . we have a Theatre in Canada, it is because of the efforts of a number of devoted and quenchlessly optimistic people whose flag bearer is Dora Mavor Moore." As I wrote this review, Jon Vickers on the CBC, paying tribute to Lois Marshall at a memorial, spoke to the theme: Art is revelation. Dora knew this deeply, and, always, wished it to be so for others.