J.M.C Meiklejohn - Edited by Denis W Johnston
Introduction
Michael Meiklejohn (1906-1989) was one of Canada's most influential leaders in community theatre after World War II. As full-time theatre consultant with the Department of National Health and Welfare from 1948 to 1955, he adjudicated drama festivals, gave speeches, taught workshops, published training materials, and consulted informally with other leaders in theatre education in Canada and abroad. In this memoir, written about 1981 and found among his private papers after his death, Mr Meiklejohn records his impressions of community theatre and theatre education in the burgeoning climate of post-war Canada.
Michael Meiklejohn (1906-1989) fut l'un des animateurs les plus importants du théâtre local au Canada de l'après-guerre. Conseiller auprès du Ministère de la Santé et du Bien-être social de 1948 à 1955, il siégeait souvent comme juge aux festivals dramatiques, donnait des conférences et animait des ateliers sur le théâtre, faisait publier des documents sur la formation théâtrale, et maintenait des rapports informels avec tous ceux chargés de cette formation au Canada et à l'étranger. Dans ce mémoir, rédigé vers 1981 et retrouvé parmi ses papiers après sa mort, M. Meiklejohn nous offre ses impressions de l'activité théâtrale régionale et locale, et de l'éducation théâtrale dans le nouveau climat culturel du Canada d'après-guerre.
In the years following World War II, theatrical activity increased enormously in many Canadian centres. Broadly speaking, there were two branches to this growth. One was the revitalization of a Canadian amateur theatre which had declined sharply during the war years. The second was a movement toward the establishment of indigenous professional theatres, such as the Canadian Repertory Theatre in Ottawa and Everyman Theatre in Vancouver. Both the old amateur and the new professional theatres were keenly interested in theatrical training: the former to raise production standards to meet the highest goals of the Little Theatre movement, and the latter to supply talent of sufficient quality for a nascent Canadian professional theatre.
Michael Meiklejohn (1906-1989) was one of Canada's most influential leaders of community theatre and theatre education in the post-war period. Between 1948 and 1955, Mr Meiklejohn was a full-time Theatre Consultant with the Physical Fitness Division of the Department of National Health and Welfare. As such, in the years preceding the establishment of the Canada Council, he was the only federal civil servant charged with giving practical encouragement to the post-war expansion of theatrical activities and services in Canada. In this role and as a Governor of the Dominion Drama Festival (from 1948 to 1958), he was a familiar figure to Canadian cultural leaders in all regions and at diverse levels. In the following memoir, written about 1981 and found among his private papers after his death, Mr Meiklejohn surveys post-war theatre in Canada from his unique perspective.
That the federal Physical Fitness Division should have taken such an interest in Canadian theatre seems odd at first glance, and requires some explanation. The impetus for creating the Division came from the National Fitness Act, signed into law in July 1943. The Act was a wartime measure intended to promote physical fitness among Canadians for, as the Minister explained to the House of Commons, figures regarding Canadian enlistments 'had brought home the fact that the overall standard of fitness has not been as high as we should have liked it to be.' 1 Since health and education were both matters of provincial jurisdiction, the federal government offered in this Act to serve as a coordinating and funding agency. It established a renewable fund of $250,000, ten per cent of which was earmarked for administration of the new federal agency, with the remaining $225,000 to be distributed in grants among the nine provinces. The Act also established a National Council on Physical Fitness, consisting (when all positions were filled) of one representative from each province, plus a National Director. Only the National Director was salaried by the federal government; the others tended to be provincial civil servants, senior to intermediate in stature, who were responsible for physical fitness or community programmes in their province.
The federal Division of Physical Fitness began operations in 1944. By the time Michael Meiklejohn joined it in 1948, the Division was in a state of instability from which it evidently never recovered. Its first director, Ian Eisenhardt, had resigned in September 1946; and except for a period of one year (October 1949 to December 1950) Eisenhardt's position was never permanently filled before the Division ceased operating in 1955. Despite repeated appeals to the Minister from the National Council, staffing of the Division remained at a subsistence level. For example, the Division's Annual Report for 1952-53 lists its staff as comprising the Assistant Director, a Technical Officer (consultant in theatre arts), a Reference Assistant (position unfilled), two clerks, two stenographers, and three typists. 2 It seems strange that in an agency supposedly dedicated to physical fitness the only position between the Acting Director and the clerical staff should be occupied by a consultant in theatre. One possible explanation is that Mr Meiklejohn was hired at a time when the filling of several such positions was anticipated but was not finally approved. In any event, the over-representation of theatre expertise in the Division's staff resulted in its theatre activities largely overshadowing its other accomplishments throughout the early 1950s.
When the Division was founded, its goals were clearly dominated by the concept of fitness for the purpose of military preparedness. After the end of the war, however, its Annual Reports indicate a shift in emphasis toward leadership training in a broad range of community-based activities. Michael Meiklejohn was in a unique position to interpret leadership training in terms of education in community theatre. Besides functioning informally as a national clearinghouse of information, he was invited to teach workshops all across Canada. He also adjudicated drama festivals, gave speeches, published self-help booklets on theatre production, and produced films and filmstrips on various aspects of community theatre.
His biography is that of a skilled bureaucrat, a leader, and a devoted amateur of the theatre. Born in London, England, in 1906, John Michael Cooper Meiklejohn caught the acting bug at Gresham Public School in Norfolk, where his fellow students included Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden. He was active in the student dramatic society at St Andrew's University in Scotland, where he took a bachelor's degree in marine zoology. A year after graduating he accepted a teaching position at Ashbury College, a private school in Ottawa. Within a month of arriving in Canada in 1930 he was cast in The Devil's Disciple at the Ottawa Little Theatre. Except for his military service during World War II his working relationship with the O.L.T. continued for 35 years.
In 1936 Michael Meiklejohn co-founded a progressive new group at the O.L.T. called the Ottawa Little Theatre Workshop. One of its first members was 22-year-old Barbara Eason, who had just arrived in Ottawa to teach at Elmwood, a private school for girls. Miss Eason, who had been trained in dance and drama in England, quickly became one of the leading actors at the Little Theatre. When war broke out in 1939 Barbara Eason returned to England to be with her family and Michael Meiklejohn joined the Shropshire Light Infantry as a second lieutenant. They were married in England in 1940 and their first child, Christopher, was born the next year.
Michael fought in Belgium and France in 1940 before being evacuated at Dunkirk. He was wounded in action in North Africa and was mentioned in dispatches for bravery under fire. He then served with the British General Staff in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia and Austria until after the war had ended, for which work he was given an M.B.E. The Meiklejohns returned to Ottawa in 1946 where their second child Julia was born. In Ottawa Michael resumed his pre-war position as a minor administrator with the British Ministry of Pensions and plunged into theatre again at the O.L.T. In his first season back in Canada, in 1946-47, he directed Blithe Spirit with Betty Leighton in the lead and Guest in the House with Amelia Hall. (Both Leighton and Hall went on to distinguished professional careers in Canada.) Because of the demands of their young family Barbara and Michael Meiklejohn did not work together on any productions for several years: each would take a turn acting or directing at the Little Theatre while the other parent stayed home in the evenings to look after the children.
After moving to Victoria in 1965 Michael Meiklejohn began to preserve evidence of the once-thriving amateur theatre in which he had participated. Over a span of fifteen years he conducted audiotaped interviews with his many former contacts in Canadian theatre. A list of the surviving tapes is appended. These tapes, plus his published memoir on theatre in Ottawa in the 1930s (THIC 10:2, Fall 1989) and his observations on post-war Canadian theatre excerpted on the following pages, ought to reserve an honoured place for Michael Meiklejohn as a teacher, administrator, and pioneer aural historian of modern Canadian theatre.
Because Mr Meiklejohn's original manuscript was discursive and loosely organized I allowed myself a good deal more editorial latitude than I did with his earlier memoir. I have rearranged chunks of text to strengthen the geographical organization. My few interpolations are set in square brackets and one notable excision, a discussion of prominent theatre educators in Britain, is marked with an ellipsis. All endnotes are editorial additions. Other editorial changes are minor and have not been marked. The original manuscript is deposited in the Manuscripts Division of the National Archives of Canada, along with my annotated transcription prior to editorial changes. I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Mrs Barbara Meiklejohn in preparing this manuscript for publication.
In 1947 the Dominion Drama Festival was revived following the war years, with the Final Festival at London, Ontario. I had directed Blithe Spirit with the Ottawa Drama League, which was the regional winner in Eastern Ontario. Very shortly after this I applied for a position with the Physical Fitness Division of the Department of National Health and Welfare. The National Physical Fitness Act [of 1943] was passed in response to a report framed by the recruiting authorities of the Armed Forces on the very high percentage of potential recruits who were physically unfit. The Act provided for the appointment of a National Fitness Council, a National Director of Fitness, and for matching grants for any province which would set up a fitness program. At its first meeting, the National Fitness Council had adopted a national policy of Fitness through Recreation. The advertisement for the job which I obtained called for demonstrated administrative skills and experience in a field of recreational activity. I cited my activities in local and regional theatre in this respect.
In 1948 the DDF Final Festival returned to Ottawa and the Little Theatre there. I was appointed stage manager for the competition, which called for the staging of fourteen plays (4 full-length and 10 one-act) on six evenings and two matinees. I also directed and played in one of the two Ottawa Drama League entries in the competition, Robertson Davies' Eros at Breakfast, for which I won the Barry Jackson Award for the best presentation of a play by a Canadian author. At this Festival I also became a governor of the DDF. All this resulted in the formation of influential contacts in theatre all across Canada, including Charles Rittenhouse, Drama Supervisor for the Protestant School Board of Montreal; Herman Voaden, Toronto school principal and active leader in the Toronto Arts and Letters Club; Dorothy Somerset, head of the Theatre Department at UBC; Herbie Whittaker, theatre critic for the Montreal Gazette and subsequently for the Toronto Globe and Mail; Père Emile Legault, director and founder of Les Compagnons de St Laurent; Bob Jarman, Supervisor of Physical Education in the Winnipeg schools and president of the Manitoba Drama League; and Walter Herbert, Executive of the Canada Foundation and a key figure in the formation of the Canada Council.
The week following this festival I started working at the Physical Fitness Division and was directed to set up an advisory committee on the requirement for teaching aids in the field of theatre. This committee was drawn from people mentioned in the paragraph above plus Professors Bill Angus of Queen's University, Emrys Jones of the University of Saskatchewan, and Bob Orchard of the University of Alberta (all of whom I'll speak of later), and Blanche Hogg of the London Little Theatre. Blanche was a tremendous influence in the Western Ontario Region in the development of theatre training courses for community theatre in Western Ontario. She developed for me a stage manager's script for As You Like It which the Physical Fitness Division published as teacher's aid materials for community theatre resources.
The winning play in 1948 was Saint Joan, directed by Blanche Hogg for the London Little Theatre. The executive of the DDF arranged for a scholarship for the girl who played St Joan which enabled her to go to RADA in London. The adjudicator, Robert Speaight, arranged for her admission to the Academy. 3 I think that Walter Herbert and the Canada Foundation were instrumental in funding the necessary money. I think this was the first theatre scholarship from Canadian sources ever awarded at a national level. It was also at this Festival that a very oddball little Englishman, Hugh Parker, organized the Ottawa Stage Society which later became the Canadian Repertory Theatre, and so probably represents the rebirth of professional theatre in Canada. The group was drawn largely from the cast of The Silver Cord presented that year by the Vancouver Little Theatre and my cast of Blithe Spirit of the previous year. 4 The next year, in April 1949, the Final Festival was held in Toronto. 5 In my new capacity I was able to arrange for a simultaneous meeting of the National Council on Physical Fitness. The previous year, in Ottawa, Walter Herbert had organized a conference or workshop for particular casts. This idea was continued and I became coordinator for the conference, which was given the subject of 'Theatre and Recreation.' Participants in this conference included:
- Richard MacDonald, Community Cultural Coordinator for the Department for Education for Alberta
- Mary Ellen Burgess, drama adviser for the Physical Fitness Division of the Department of Education in Saskatchewan
- Donald Wetmore, drama adviser in the Nova Scotia Department of Education
- Blanche Hogg from London
- Charles Rittenhouse from Montreal.
Herman Voaden appeared before a meeting
of the National Council. He made a very impassioned speech and delivered
a brief calling for government assistance for theatre activity as an important
cultural influence in Canadian life. This brief was very well received
by the Council at the time, but apparently it led to no follow-up action.
6
In September of 1949, at the invitation of the Scottish Amateur Theatre Association, I took my production of Eros at Breakfast to Edinburgh to appear in an international presentation of amateur theatre at the Pleasance Theatre during the Edinburgh Festival. We played for a week in Edinburgh and later for three days in Glasgow. Immediately following this I went south to England to attend the annual meeting of County Drama Advisers at Leamington Spa. This opportunity resulted from correspondence with E. Martin Browne, secretary of the British Drama League. Martin Browne was extremely kind to me and arranged a number of valuable contacts [ . .. ] 7
The next year, in 1950, I was invited to be a speaker at the annual meeting of the Western Canada Theatre Conference in Regina. This organization was started at the beginning of the Second World War by the four western regions of the Dominion Drama Festival, to provide a forum for theatre ideas in the four western provinces. At this meeting the Conference decided to terminate itself in view of the revival of the DDF national festival. It happened that I had arranged to fly on to attend the U.S. national children's theatre conference in Minneapolis and consequently was catching a plane from Regina, leaving at half past three in the morning. A party was arranged to see me onto the plane. This party consisted of:
- Mary Ellen Burgess, Physical Fitness and Recreation Division, Department of Extension, Saskatchewan
- Elsie Mackenzie, 8 Department of Extension, University of Alberta and the Banff School of Fine Arts
- Jessie Richardson, perpetual chairperson of the British Columbia region of the Dominion Drama Festival
- Dick MacDonald, cultural relations for the province of Alberta, shortly to become secretary of the DDF
- Donald Wetmore, drama adviser, Department of Education of Nova Scotia
- Burton and Flo James of the Seattle Repertory Theatre.
Burton was a professional actor and
director and Florence a qualified speech coach trained at Boston College.
They had been on the staff of the Banff School of Fine Arts and just been
teaching at Dorothy Somerset's Summer School of the Theatre at UBC. Very
shortly after this they became the victims of an extremely vicious attack
by Senator McCarthy's Committee on Un-American Activities and were forced
out of their theatre in Seattle. Burton died, his friends say of a broken
heart, and Flo was found a job by Tommy Douglas in the Arts Board of Saskatchewan.
9
At this party or meeting there was a wide-ranging discussion on the condition of Canadian theatre at that date. We made a list of the people we knew whose primary source of income was the theatre. Including the Canadian Repertory Theatre in Ottawa, drama departments at Queen's University and the Universities of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, federal and provincial departments and agencies, and the CBC in Toronto, we came up with only seventy or so names.
The children's theatre conference at Minneapolis was fascinating. 10 The participants were diverse. The biggest groups were the representatives of the Junior League. Some were interested in theatre for children, some in theatre with children. There were a few people, mainly from New York and Chicago representing professional groups, interested in entertainment by professionals for children. Lastly there were the representatives from American university drama departments concerned with the rapidly expanding field of Creative Dramatics. Al Hurn 11 of the British Columbia Department of Education was the only other Canadian present as far as I know. It is probable that it was at this meeting that Al established a liaison with the University of Washington which resulted in the provision of a keynote speaker on children's theatre at the conference held in conjunction with the DDF finals in Victoria in 1953.
As far as I was concerned the most important contact that I made was with Isabel Burger, director of the Children's Experimental Theatre of Baltimore. 12 As a result I was able to arrange a two-day workshop at the Ottawa Little Theatre with Miss Burger as a very stimulating speaker. Her approach was very sympathetic to me at this time because the main feature of the Baltimore theatre was high standards of play production for audiences of children, but using young performers trained in creative drama classes. She worked to a scripted story, but every segment of action arose from free improvisation. The experience of watching her working with a group of kids was unbelievable. She stressed, as they all do, the importance of drawing all dramatic action out of the feelings and instincts of the children and never imposing direction of any kind. But her personality was so strong and her ability to establish an empathetic reaction so powerful that you felt that she would have been able to draw one of the Hamlet soliloquies from any of her pupils without any previous contacts. It was like watching rabbits with an anaconda. (Unfair perhaps, because she was charming and helpful.)
During the 1950s I visited, conducted workshops, made speeches, and adjudicated in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. (The Quebec government took the line that all the Division's activities were concerned with Education, which was under the constitution a provincial matter.) In the later '50s I went to the Northwest Territories to instruct in a summer school for teachers in the eastern Arctic. Newfoundland did not enter Confederation until after the demise of the Physical Fitness Act. 13
Before proceeding with a coast to coast survey of theatrical activity as I saw it during my employment with the Physical Fitness Division, I think that it is necessary to remember that in the spring of 1953 when I attended the DDF Final Festival in Victoria, the Stratford Festival was not yet open and the Canada Council was not to be established for four more years. This was the event that would completely alter the whole spectrum of the Arts in Canada.
British Columbia
The first director of Physical Fitness for Canada was Ian Eisenhardt from British Columbia. I never met him. His background was Physical Fitness, I believe, and I understand he was a top performer. He left after a very short term in office. I understand his departure came from tensions created with other provinces when he attempted to impose policy from Ottawa. It was some years before the province appointed another member to the National Council. This was Ernest Lee, a former school principal. His approach was administrative and he never expressed to me any viewpoint indicating particular interest in physical education, recreation, or the arts. He became National Director for a short time and eventually left to assume a job as a director of a radio station in California. 14
In 1953 I visited British Columbia for the first time. The Dominion Drama Festival was being held in Victoria and as chairman of the Eastern Ontario region I was a member of the Executive of the Festival. Although I was going to attend in a non-governmental capacity, at this distant date I cannot remember how a representative of the wicked Federal government was allowed to cross the Rockies and intrude into the Promised land. I was, altogether, about three weeks in the province. I spent the best part of a day at UBC with Dorothy Somerset discussing every aspect of theatre in Canada. I was taken to see the original Freddie Wood Theatre, improvised out of Army Nissen huts. I had an afternoon of conversation with Joy Coghill at the Vancouver Arts Council. (This was not the first Arts Council in Canada: that honour must go to Coste House in Calgary, which is, I suppose, the prototype for Arts Councils in North America.) 15 I remember I was, as an Easterner, amazed at the wealth of creative activity in the Vancouver area.
When I got to Victoria, Board meetings prevented me from attending sessions of the Drama Conference which were taking place in the mornings during the Festival. I cannot tell you, at this date, whether the topic was children's theatre or creative dramatics. The keynote speaker was a woman from Seattle, an associate professor at the University of Washington. 16 I spent quite a lot of time with Al Hurn, and discussed the B.C. drama program with him. After this I visited the Okanagan, adjudicated a festival at Penticton, and ran a series of workshops with the groups. 17
The exact relationship between the federal government and the B.C. government in the areas of my interest was never clear to me. UBC was the first Canadian university to offer degree courses in Recreation. This was a matter of considerable interest to the Division; but, it seems to me, the correspondence and discussion were held entirely on a person-to-person basis, with no line of communication at the level of federal-provincial government departments. During the time I was in Victoria there was no question of my meeting anyone at a higher level. Al Hurn took me down to his office and to the provincial Drama Library. He was prepared to discuss the kind of services his Branch offered, such as payment for instructors and adjudicators. He was not interested in the provision of teaching aids nor in the operation of leadership training courses. 18 He did, strangely enough, take me out to see a performance by a travelling company in Duncan. My impression was that the group was professional and that he was providing some assistance. I later wondered whether this group was the remnant of the Everyman production of Tobacco Road that had come to Victoria after losing their hall in Vancouver. 19
When I look back, British Columbia in 1953, as I remember it, was marked with an enormously vital group of creative leaders centred round Dorothy Somerset and UBC. Sydney Risk, Jessie Richardson, Joy Coghill and Dorothy were all people of creative drive. This was what I had expected from the B.C. plays which I had seen in earlier DDF Final Festivals: Dorothy Somerset's production of the Garden of Eden scene from Back to Methuselah [in 1933], a production of Waiting for Lefty [1936] from an East end Vancouver recreation club during the Depression years, and the Vancouver Little Theatre production of The Silver Cord [1948]. All these productions had impressed me by the unity of their conception. Amateur theatre in B.C. at that time seemed exciting and dynamic. In contrast to this impression I should report that the Ottawa entry that year in Victoria was a fine production of The Madwoman of Chaillot. The cast, who were mostly young and several ambitious for a professional career, were invited to Langham Court Theatre to meet the Victoria Theatre Guild cast of the same play. The Ottawans were not impressed. They saw the Theatre Guild as a play-for-fun group.
Alberta
When I met Bob Orchard in Ottawa in 1948, he had just been appointed to set up a Department of Drama in Edmonton. He initially developed his department as a university community theatre production unit with the belief that audience participation in classic theatre was an essential element in the development of an educated mind. Carl Hare was one of his pupils. 20 At a slightly later date Bob took a sabbatical and went to Europe to study. He is reported as having moved towards the study of the creative approach to both acting and direction. I do not know whether this change in direction resulted in the termination of his employment at the U. of A. In any event he moved to Vancouver shortly after his return and for a time was in very straitened circumstances. He was a vital, exciting person, with an amusing and creative mind. My creative life was enormously enriched by my contact with him. I think his real interests were as an actor rather than a director or teacher.
In the early 1950s the artistic atmosphere of Alberta was highly charged. The University of Alberta had not yet started the phenomenal growth which made it the richest university in Canada by the end of the next decade. Leduc was still just a rural crossroad. But the impetus of the Commonwealth Air Training plan had opened the eyes of Alberta authorities to the need for support for cultural activities. The Alberta member of the Physical Fitness Council was Mr J.H. Ross, a very adroit civil servant who was immensely skilful in the management of provincial-federal relationships and particularly understanding of the great Canadian crux which arises from the specific exclusion of the federal government from the field of Education. He had originally worked for the Alberta Department of Labour and at the outbreak of the war he had operated the provincial side of an apprentice training scheme which had also run on a cost-sharing basis. Mr Ross advocated a clear distinction between skills training and education, and felt that provincial education departments could easily cooperate in federally-operated schemes on that basis. As far as I know he ran no provincial program. When I came to the province I worked in liaison with the cultural Coordinator in the Department of Education, Blake Mackenzie, who had just taken over the position from Richard MacDonald, who had moved to Ottawa to become Executive Secretary to the Dominion Drama Festival.
In 1954 Blake extended an invitation for me to instruct at a residential summer school in theatre to be held in the high school in Red Deer. Betty Mitchell and Bob Orchard were the other instructors. I had known Betty for some years through the DDF. Her program at Western Canada High in Calgary was a very significant factor in the growth of theatre in Western Canada. Her teaching ethos was based on the principle that theatre was a discipline and performance without discipline was indulgence. Students enrolled in theatre did not get any opportunity to act in school productions during their first year. In the second year they could be considered for walk-ons and small supporting roles, with supporting roles in the third year; leading roles could only be expected in the final year. Out of a group of her graduates she formed 'Workshop 14', which sent plays to the DDF Final Festival more frequently than any other group from the West. Betty was very ambitious for her group and really wanted to bring the Bessborough Trophy to Alberta. I do not think that she ever achieved this aim, but she did manage to train a very large number of people who were employable at a professional level in theatre. I remember this opportunity of working with Betty with great pleasure. I was much stimulated by the many discussions which we had on production, teaching and rehearsal problems. In later years, the University of Alberta gave her an honourary doctorate and the city of Calgary named the theatre in their new Arts Centre 'The Betty Mitchell Theatre.' 21
While I was in Alberta during this period I was taken on an official visit to the Banff School of Fine Arts and was received by Senator Cameron himself. At the time I felt that I was looked on as a spy from Ottawa who should be told as little as possible. I have talked with a number of people who had attended Banff either as staff or as students, and it has long been my impression that Banff generally fell into the same trap that other kinds of summer theatre training institutions did. They are in the same kind of position as an American college that hires a new football coach on the basis of his known ability in teaching basic football skills and then fires him because he doesn't win the Rose Bowl. Banff hired some pretty formidable American talent over the years. But great emphasis was laid on a final showpiece production, and the make-up of the student enrolment was heavily weighted on the female side. The limitations on casting forced directors into the kind of production that depended much more on crowd effects and similar directors' devices than on acting. Male students often got good value from the summer school experience; female students seldom got a chance to play and had to be content with menial tasks on the production side. The burden of play direction also mitigated against effective presentation at lecture sessions.
I remember very well that there was a cross-fertilization between the UBC Summer School and Banff. I have memories of a children's theatre person from Vancouver who was operating effectively as a teacher and leader in Alberta during this period. 22
Saskatchewan
The adjudicator at the DDF Final Festival in London in 1947 was Professor Emrys Jones from the University of Saskatchewan. Though he did not give my play the Bessborough Trophy we did develop a mutual regard, and continued friendly for a great number of years. 23 I might say that at one time I was reckoned the only theatre person in Canada who was on speaking terms with him. Emrys was one of a group of creative people who had graduated from the University of Alberta in the period after the First World War. I believe that his elder brother was in the English Department, and seems to have been the centre of this group. Donald Cameron (founder of the Banff School of Fine Arts) and Betty Mitchell (of Calgary's celebrated Workshop 14) were part of this creative focus. Emrys operated the Theatre Department at the University of Saskatchewan on the basis of a campus community theatre. He was a creative theatre person with high standards and a wide knowledge of world theatre. His abrasive Welsh manner and his obvious delight in caustic criticism of the efforts of others, I believe, did much to destroy his value in the forward growth of Canadian culture. Emrys, in the early years of the Second World War, had been one of the recipients of a Rockefeller grant in the Theatre Arts. He had intended to pursue studies at Cornell; but I think that he found the requirements for undergraduate course credits simply too ridiculous for words, and he finally spent his grant on an examination of commercial theatre on Broadway. Parenthetically, the other two recipients of Rockefeller grants were Betty Mitchell and Bob Gard, the founder of the Wisconsin Idea Theatre, who never returned from Madison to Canada. 24
With the Physical Fitness Division, I have the pleasantest memories of early visits to Regina, Saskatoon, and Prince Albert. Dr Kirkpatrick, the Saskatchewan member on the National Physical Fitness Council, had a very lively image of provincial service to communities in both artistic and physical activities. He enjoyed the strongest possible political support from his elected superiors. At various times I was warmly greeted by Tommy Douglas, Mr Lloyd and Clarence Fines. 25
When I was in Saskatchewan I always worked with and through Mary Ellen Burgess. Mrs Burgess was a natural phenomenon. Spending her early married life in rural Saskatchewan, she had acquired a local reputation as director and coach. (Franny Hyland was one of her early pupils.) When a Physical Fitness Division was formed in Saskatchewan she was hired to operate a program of assistance to groups in rural areas. 26 The Department of Education had arranged for her to take some sort of refresher course or courses in the United States where she had learned about Creative Dramatics. She had the most tremendous energy. She would start to teach as she slammed her car door on arrival and would only stop when she got the car in gear again for her return home. When she got back to Regina she would sit down to a three or four hour session with her secretary clearing up her correspondence. She was known in every community in Saskatchewan from the American border to the Northwest Territories. I remember one trip with her, to Prince Albert for a weekend workshop. I changed a back tire for her in the morning, attended a provincial meeting in Saskatoon at lunch time, and got myself covered from head to foot with gumbo mud trying to push her car out of a prairie drift on a six-mile traffic diversion. I had no change of clothing and was the guest speaker at a formal luncheon for a fund-raising drive for the Regina Little Theatre. Strenuous but fun. After Mary Ellen retired from the Department of Education she continued in employment for three years teaching creative dramatics at the Saskatchewan Teachers College. [In 1977] the University of Regina gave her an honourary doctorate.
Manitoba
My official contacts with Manitoba were through the Department of Education which had appointed as Director of Fitness and Recreation an Olympic level swimmer, with a Phys. Ed. degree from the YMCA university at Springfield, Mass. Hart Devenney was very helpful to me and set up a number of good workshop situations in the province. There is an interesting piece of Canadian history in this province. As early as 1930 the Manitoba Drama League was set up by the Extension Service of the Manitoba Department of Agriculture. This league operated drama festivals in communities all over the province. At the time about which I am writing, Bob Jarman, an Englishman who was school superintendent in Physical Education in the city of Winnipeg, was chairman of the League. He was a hard-working adjudicator, using the methods laid down by the British League of Adjudicators. His approach was a little formal and old-fashioned, with a great emphasis on speech and line delivery; but he did insist on standards. He died of a heart attack on stage while delivering an adjudication at Pilot Mound, Manitoba. 27
Manitoba laid the foundation stone of drama teaching in the history of Canadian theatre. The roots of Canadian radio drama are set in Winnipeg. Esse Ljungh and Tommy Tweed first entered the Canadian scene from that city. Emrys Jones and John Hirsch both operated CBC drama programs from Winnipeg at one time or another. I had first contacted John through correspondence, when he wrote asking whether it was possible to make a living in Canada in theatre. As I remember it, I advised him against coming to Canada. 28
Some time in the sixties I was invited to be the guest speaker at an inaugural lunch for the Winnipeg Children's Theatre. This was a Junior League operation which had been running for some time, and had just hired John Hirsch as director for the project. I had no previous conversation with him and do not know what he expected me to say, but from our later relationship I guess I used the right approach. As I recollect, I asked the audience to distinguish between theatre for children and children's theatre. I suggested that the opportunity to be a part of the audience for artistic productions of good plays should be a part of one's cultural heritage. The opportunity for children to have the creative experience of performing themselves was quite another thing. I considered that there was greater value in rehearsal than in performance, although rehearsal without the final expectation of performance was counter-productive. I remember saying that an under-rehearsed production of Alice in Wonderland with children as actors was pretty well valueless as Alice was a very bad children's script, much too long with contrived situations and full of esoteric adult jokes which children could not be expected to understand. This proved a real foot-in-mouth remark as the Junior League had staged just such a production in the past. My final memory of this event was a little old lady who said: 'I do not like to take my grandson to children's theatre because he gets so frightened of the witches and giants.' I replied, 'Madam, I suggest to you that the chances of your grandson getting through life without being frightened are very small. I think it better for him to have his first frightening experience in a situation where he has your immediate support.' The Winnipeg Tribune had a headline next morning: 'National Health and Welfare expert says it's good for children to be frightened'! 29
Ontario
In the late 1930s, because the Eastern Ontario regional festival of the Dominion Drama Festival was always held in Grant Hall at Queen's University, I met and came to know Bill Angus. He was, as far as I know, the only academic appointment in the field of theatre at any university in Canada. 30 it is my impression that the courses that he taught were not offered as a major in any degree program. Most of his students seemed to be seeking Education degrees. Theatre Arts would I think rank slightly below Physical Education as a subsidiary skill for a high school teacher in an Eastern Ontario community at that time. I am sure that no high school employed any teacher on the basis of a theatrical specialty prior to 1947 or 1948. My memory tells me that Dr Angus's courses were aimed at teaching the basic skills of play production in a community or high school situation. In addition, he directed an annual student production of a classic, generally Shakespeare. This production was normally taken to Ottawa for presentation in the Ottawa Little Theatre during Queen's Week. 31
At the time of the Fitness Conference and the DDF Final Festival in Toronto in 1949, the government of Ontario had signed no agreement with the federal government. However, it had copied the national Act and had set up a Physical Fitness Division with an Olympic athlete who was also a war hero, Wing Commander J.K. Tett. This organization later became the Community Programmes Branch, which is still operating. 32 I do not know whether it was a result of this conference or of my appointment, but at about this time the Ontario government appointed Edgar Stone, a professional theatre director, to establish a community theatre branch as part of the provincial recreation program. It was at this meeting that the first question of the foundation of a National Theatre School was first discussed. A committee under the chairmanship of Alan Skinner of the University of Western Ontario was set up, a committee which included Robertson Davies and Charles Rittenhouse.
In the 1950s the Ontario situation was as complex as that for the whole country. During most of the period I was persona non grata in Toronto. I had many contacts during the period with people active in amateur theatre, particularly from the London Little Theatre and the Hamilton Theatre Guild. After Edgar Stone died in the late '50s the Community Programmes Branch did not replace him as Drama Adviser. 33 However they were employing a very able puppeteer, George Merten. He was a talented and creative constructor of puppets, a highly professional operator and an excellent instructor. He had organized a province-wide puppeteer program, and eventually took on the operation of the performing arts side of Community Programmes for the next few years. For him I did a series of workshops in rural communities in Huronia. This was the only work I did with Ontario Community Programmes before the cancellation of the National Physical Fitness Act. Some time in the 1960s I became a member of the Ontario Drama Council, a body set up by the Minister of Education to advise the Community Programmes Branch. I remember at one time a couple of members felt that since they were appointed by the Minister to advise, this meant that we had the right to advise the Minister. Since we were concerned with drama programs in school classrooms, we were very quickly told to keep our cotton-picking fingers out of educational matters where we were considered to have no expertise.
Both Barbara and I were concerned with a number of leadership training exercises in Eastern Ontario before we moved to British Columbia [in 1965], and also with the operation of the Theatre School in the Ottawa Drama League and Ottawa Theatre for Children. The Ottawa theatre school and the Theatre for Children were started by Julia MacBrien Murphy immediately after the war. She had a group of young adults who formed the cast for theatre-for-children productions which toured high schools in Ottawa. In addition Julia ran classes for children on Saturday mornings. There were originally three people concerned in the venture: Julia, Marian Taylor and Amelia Hall. Amelia was a high school teacher of English with considerable acting experience. Soon after this she went professional with the Canadian Repertory Theatre. Marian, an imposing personality, was English-trained but I don't know in what discipline. Julia was a RADA-trained actress, but had been actively engaged in play direction over the years. She was a concerned student of Stanislavsky and used some of the methods in Michael Chekhov's book. Her methods were closely allied to 'creative dramatics,' but I am sure that her bases were European and had no connection with any American approach. After a time Julia handed over the teaching of the children's classes to a pupil of hers, Billy Glenn, who eventually departed for Los Angeles where he made a lot of money directing soap operas. As the operation developed Barbara first came in when it became necessary to have local representatives to manage the audiences in the various high schools. The Little Theatre slowly withdrew from the operation, and the city's Recreation Department took on the production chores. A pattern subsequently developed in which three plays were produced per year, each play presented on six or seven successive weekends in six or seven different auditoria, and each performance not to exceed 90 minutes in length including an interval. The actors were adult, and every endeavour was made to maintain a high standard in costume and setting. No musical scripts were used but there were dances and occasionally songs during the action.
I must speak about Barbara's role in the theatre school. After Julia had left and Billy Glenn was running the children's classes, eventually there were a number of pupils who had been attending for three years or so. A group of these senior students came to Barbara and said, 'We've had enough creative drama. Could you start a class to teach us the real basics of acting?' She developed a course similar to that used at professional drama schools. The classes were for two hours each Saturday morning. As most of the kids paid their own fees, they were very dedicated, hardworking, and disciplined. The course included mime, movement, acting, and speech (although Barbara always stressed that a real speech course can only be successful when there is a real personal need to improve speaking habits and the patience to practice daily). Several of her pupils went professional in later years. 34
Montreal
Whenever I think of Montreal the first person I think of is Charles Rittenhouse. During the time I was living in Montreal in the Depression, Charles, who was teaching English at one of the Protestant high schools, West Hill I think, had produced King Lear with a student cast and had stolen the headlines. 35 The critics were extolling it far above productions of the Montreal Repertory Theatre or other adult groups. Shortly after that excitement Charles took a sabbatical and went to Yale to get his BFA. When he came back he became superintendent of drama in the Montreal Protestant school system. Later he also became superintendent of English in Montreal schools. In this capacity he manoeuvred himself onto the planning committees for the new high schools that were built after the war on the north side of the mountain. As a result each of these new schools when built was provided with an auditorium designed for use as a community theatre. The lighting equipment and board provided were sufficiently elaborate to facilitate some degree of creativity in lighting a play, but still sufficiently straightforward that an electrical engineer was not required to operate it.
I first met Charles in a meaningful way in connection with the Ottawa Little Theatre Workshop one-act play competition, for which he was adjudicator for two or three years. 36 I had been concerned with the first production of the earliest of Robertson Davies' plays, Overlaid and Eros at Breakfast, both of which Charles had picked as competition winners. After this we were involved together with Walter Herbert of the Canada Foundation in establishing a catalogue of plays by Canadian authors. This project was overtaken by a number of factors, chiefly I think by the decline in interest in the production of one-act play scripts. At this time we both resolved to confine our directing efforts to Canadian scripts. I had about four years in the late 1940s when I stuck to this resolve. 37 In the end of course I moved out of the area in which you can dictate your own theatrical plannings. Except for a couple of adventures with the Bard I was forced to retreat to 'popular' theatre for some years.
When I started my program at the National Fitness division, Charles was my major adviser for leadership training programs in community theatre. I obtained the funds to make a one-reel film on the subject. With others on my committee we developed a list of some seventy points which must be covered. I believe that the NFB script writers managed to include all seventy points, but the total result (entitled On Stage) lacked appeal because the politics and the finances dictated that the film must be made in both English and French as one operation. This meant a bilingual cast which resulted in a product that had no empathetic response from any standard Canadian audience. 38
The other Montreal link that I achieved and valued was that I met and briefly worked with Père Emile Legault, the founder and director of Les Compagnons de St-Laurent. I was enormously pleased when I learned this week that Emile Legault had been given the Order of Canada at this New Year. 39 I think of him as the only native Canadian theatre genius of my time. I saw only two of his productions, Antigone [1948] and Les Gueux au paradis [1951]. 40 They remain with me after 30 odd years as highlights in my theatrical life. Père Legault's sense of total theatre, his vitality, his imagination, made him paramount in Canada in my time. It is a terrible shame that Canada was not able to harness his talents on a wider scale. Just after Les Compagnons started to dissolve with pressures arising from commercial opportunities, I said to him 'Emile, what will you do?' He replied, 'I suppose I will have to go back to teaching. It is a pity, I have such poor discipline.'
Emile Legault arrived on the national scene just at the same time as Michel St-Denis. I do not know whether there was any connection between the Compagnie des Quinze [of St-Denis] and the Compagnons de St-Laurent, but they were clearly part of the same theatrical movement. Michel St-Denis, and by implication his uncle Jacques Copeau, had a great influence on English and French speaking theatre in Canada. In the 1930s St-Denis had amazed London theatre with his production of plays by Obey (in particular Noah), and was invited to adjudicate the DDF Final Festival in Ottawa in 1937. His dynamic criticisms of the plays presented at the finals were a revelation. Those who heard him were moved to review their approaches to rehearsal and production. St-Denis made two subsequent visits to Canada in the 1940s and was followed by Pierre Lefevre, his pupil and assistant, who did both regional and finals adjudications. Both of them were, I believe, consulted in the formation of a National Theatre School. I am sure that both are significant in the formation of Canadian theatre. Robertson and Brenda Davies worked with St-Denis at the Old Vic before the war. Several Canadian students went and studied with Pierre Lefevre in Strasbourg. I have discussed St-Denis' influence with Dorothy Somerset and Betty Mitchell. I am particularly indebted to him for a concept of a total production, a presentation in which every element played its part, and in which actors performed as a group working together for a total effect.
The Maritimes
Working in the three Maritime provinces was always a pleasure. The provincial/federal agreement was, in each case, with the Department of Education; and my program of leadership training knitted directly into existing provincial programs. In addition, official notice was always taken of my presence in a province. Deputy Ministers of Education and Superintendents of provincial education made themselves available to render thanks for one's contribution.
In Prince Edward Island Dr L.W. Shaw, Deputy Minister of Education, was the original member of the National Fitness Council, and gave me an introduction at my first workshop. Because government was so small in Charlottetown and salaries were tiny, almost everyone wore a number of hats. Most of the local arrangements were made by Bram Chandler, whose functions included Film Board representative and chief librarian of the provincial library system. Most of my direct liaison was with Brigadier W.W. Reid, the great Pooh-Bah of the Island. He was Director of Physical Fitness, Chief of the Boy Scouts, Director of Tourism, Senior Military Officer on the Island, and director of the provincial remembrance campaign.
Whenever I visited the Island I always found a kind note with a bottle of rye to greet me in my hotel room. At that time Prince Edward Island was dry, but you could buy single bottles of spirits from government liquor stores on presentation of a doctor's certificate. 41 Doctors charged $100 for such a certificate. Needless to say when the legislature of PEI proposed an end to the Dry regime, the doctors presented the biggest and loudest Dry lobby. The chairman of the PEI region of the Dominion Drama Festival was Judge Palmer, federal judge in the Maritime Court. When I went to his house for dinner, I was always offered smuggled overproof rum from St Pierre and Miquelon.
I gave either three or four workshops on the Island in different years. A very large part of the enrolment was comprised of elementary school teachers, including a number of nuns. One year I had a very senior nun, whose brother was at the time Auditor General for Canada. 42 She was an enormously stimulating member of the group and an important discussion leader. She was interested in the extension of improvisation techniques to the classroom. I always used improvisation both to break down barriers and to ensure individual involvement.
In New Brunswick Stan Spicer, a Phys. Ed. graduate from the University of Springfield, Mass., was enormously helpful in setting up situations for me. He worked very well with Jeanie Fetherstonhaugh, the permanent secretary to the New Brunswick Drama League. When I taught at either Saint John or Fredericton I was assured of a full enrolment. Alvin Shaw, head of the English Department at UNB, who became chairman of the New Brunswick region and eventually President of the Dominion Drama Festival before Helen Smith, was always an active participator in my workshops. 43
One of the very pleasant things that happened to me when in New Brunswick was an experience of breaking through the bilingual curtain. The sensation of the Victoria drama festival of 1953 had been the student production in French of Our Town from St Joseph's University at Memramcook. The group had not only enchanted everyone by their beautifully directed production, but also had appeared at almost every party during the DDF as a choir singing traditional French folk songs. The play's director Father Cormier, who was also principal of the University, had by 1958 or so been transferred from Memramcook to the direction of their extramural institute in Moncton. This shortly afterwards became the University of Moncton. When I visited him he was busy getting the meeting hall into a working theatre, and he gave me a tour. I commented on the number of fine mirror spots which he had, and I asked how much he had had to pay for them. When we got to his study he produced invoices from Century-Appleton consigning the lights (second-hand) to the rector of a parish at Madawaska, Maine, who was also a Father Cormier. I did not ask for further information. It would be wrong to record that Father Cormier winked at me.
In addition to Saint John and Fredericton I gave workshops at Newcastle, Chatham, and Edmundston, where I was required to make a short speech in French and appeared on an hour-long radio interview which was conducted in the two languages. Although occasionally I did improvisation demonstrations in schools, the emphasis was on recreational play for fun theatre. Only the Saint John Little Theatre and UNB were at all interested beyond that.
Nova Scotia was the province which made me feel most welcome and in which I felt that I did my most valuable work. The first time that I visited to speak I was introduced by Dr DeWolfe, who had been Superintendent of Education since the 1900s. 44 He said, 'I do not know Mr Meiklejohn personally, but he must be a good man if he is anything like his grandfather whom I knew well.' I think that my grandfather died in 1904 or thereabouts.
Very shortly after the Second World War Nova Scotia had set up a Community Services program aimed directly at the cultural well-being of its small towns and villages. The keystones to this program were the appointments of music and drama advisers. The two worked out of the same office, complementing and supplementing each other's services. By the time that I came along, they had established annual summer schools for the arts for rural communities. These schools were held in residential facilities. The first time I became involved the school was held in a YMCA camp at Big Cove just outside Pictou. As well as choir directing and drama, there were sketching lessons given by Donald MacKay, head of the provincial Art Gallery, with his wife. The emphasis at the school was on active participation. Each evening after supper there was some sort of entertainment and the three groups took turns in arranging the evening's proceedings. In the drama group exercise, improvisations were chosen and polished for evening production. In addition, all the drama students were given opportunities for performance in scripted plays rehearsed for presentation at a 'final-night' concert.
The drama adviser, Donald Wetmore, was a Nova Scotian who had professional experience on the stage in New York prior to 1940. I suspect that he also had teaching experience. He was a very skilful instructor with a pleasant persuasive manner. We worked very well together as we were in complete contrast in teaching methods. We had many discussions both on content and method. A great part of the giveaway teaching material which I developed resulted from such discussions. I remember on one occasion meeting Donald on a train at Moncton and completing a draft for a working sheet for drama adjudicators by the time we had reached Truro. This working sheet had pretty wide distribution across Canada. 45
In all our discussions we found ourselves in general agreement that the key to improvement in production standards lay in the training of directors. 46 One of the problems inherent in workshop programs was that the participants at such sessions were not necessarily considered theatrical leaders within their own communities. Only too often people attended workshops for just this reason: because they were not acceptable to their own groups or communities. In addition, the real leaders felt that they had little to learn and didn't go to workshops. With these kinds of problems in mind, Donald arranged with Professor Sipprell, head of the English Department of Acadia University, to invite a selected list of people accepted in the Province as competent play directors to spend a weekend at Acadia talking about the problems of the director. This was one of the most productive workshops I remember. There were less than a dozen of us and we were able to get down to a number of very good discussion sessions.
In 1959 Barbara and I went to the annual summer school together and both taught. It was held in the district high school at Tatamagouche in Colchester County. Barbara taught speech and I had a group on direction. In addition to all this I did workshops with Donald at New Glasgow, Truro, Mount Allison University, Halifax, and Lunenburg.
Just before the Diefenbaker government cancelled the Physical Fitness Act, 47 Donald Wetmore issued the first invitation to Brian Way to visit Canada. In the Physical Fitness Branch we were able to interest other provinces in a tour. I do not know how many provinces Brian visited on his first visit. He certainly was in Ontario and Alberta as well as Nova Scotia. I did not audit any of his workshops.
Selected Bibliography
Newspaper Articles [in chronological order]
DAVIES, Robertson, 'Ovation at play's end from Edinburgh audience,' Ottawa Journal 6 Sept 1949 p 2
'Michael Meiklejohn honored for outstanding drama work,' Ottawa Journal 16 Dec 1950 p 9
THISTLE, Lauretta, 'Of paper darts, parents, and no jobs for actors" Ottawa Evening Citizen 2 Sept 1950 (magazine section) p 30
'Drama League to stage new Canadian play,' Ottawa Journal 24 Feb 1951 p 11
THISTLE, Lauretta, 'Barbara Meiklejohn brilliant in Coward's This Happy Breed,' Ottawa Citizen 9 April 1957 p 7
ASHLEY, Audrey M, 'Meiklejohns take their final bow in Ottawa,' Ottawa Citizen 10 July 1965 p 23
'Dedicated to J M C Meiklejohn,' The Log (yearbook of Royal Roads Military College) 1972
GIBSON, Jim, 'Their retirement wasn't in Earnest,' Victoria Daily Colonist 10 Oct 1976 p 29
Audiotapes made by J.M.C Meiklejohn
The following are deposited in the National Archives of Canada:
A. Catalogued under 'Michael Meiklejohn':
1. Interview with Michael Meiklejohn, 1983,
about the Ottawa Little Theatre
2. Interview with Michael Meiklejohn,
1983, about the Ottawa Little Theatre
3. Interview with Michael Meiklejohn,
1983, about the Dominion Drama Festival
4. Interview with Michael Meiklejohn,
1970[?], about the history of theatre in British Columbia
5. Interview with Peter Mannering, 1981,
about theatre in British Columbia
B. Catalogued under 'Theatre Canada':
1. Interview with Florence James, 1966,
about theatre in British Columbia and Saskatchewan
2. Discussion with Anne Adamson, Sydney
Risk, Sylvia Risk, and Phoebe Smith, 1968, about theatre in British Columbia
3. Interview with Bill Adkins, 1968, about
the Ottawa Little Theatre
4. Interview with Michael Meiklejohn,
1968, about his experiences in the Dominion Drama Festival
5. Interview with Audrey Johnson, 1969,
about theatre in British Columbia
6. Interview with Sally Starks, 1969,
about theatre in Montreal
7. Interview with Cal Abrahamson, 1969,
about theatre in Saskatchewan
8. Interview with William Angus, 1967,
about theatre in Kingston
8A. Interview with Ruth Ruggles
9. Interview with Charles Rittenhouse,
1967, about theatre in Montreal
9A. Interview with Blanche and Bill Hogg,
1967, about theatre in London, Ontario
10. Interview with Amelia Hall, 1967,
about her career
11. Interview with Dick MacDonald, 1967,
about theatre in Alberta and about the Dominion Drama Festival.
Copies of some of these tapes are also deposited in the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, and in the Special Collections Division of the McPherson Library, University of Victoria.
Notes
THEATRE EDUCATION IN CANADA AFTER WORLD WAR II: A MEMOIR
J.M.C Meiklejohn - Edited by Denis W Johnston
1 House of Commons Debates,
21 July 1943
Return to article
2 Facts here are gleaned
from the Division's Annual Reports, available in the Sessional Papers of
the House of Commons
Return to article
3 This was evidently an
extraordinary performance by 22-year-old Olga Landiak, who received fulsome
praise from Speaight. See LUCY VAN GOGH, 'London's "Saint Joan" is a unique
experience,' Saturday Night 63,31 (8 May 1948) p 26
Return to article
4 The history of the Canadian
Repertory Theatre is told in Life Before Stratford: The Memoirs of Amelia
Hall (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1989)
Return to article
5 At this Festival Mr Meiklejohn
again won the Barry Jackson Award with his production of a ROBERTSON DAVIES
play, Fortune, My Foe
Return to article
6 Not all theatre people
in Canada were in favour of government subsidy for theatre: see ANTON WAGNER,
'Infinite Variety or a Canadian "National" Theatre: Roly Young and the
Toronto Civic Theatre Association, 1945-1949,' THIC/HTC 9,2 (Fall
1988)
Return to article
7 Omitted here are Mr Meiklejohn's
observations on the system of County Drama Advisers in the U.K., and on
the teaching methods of such prominent British theatre teachers as PETER
SLADE, ROBERT NEWTON, and MAISIE COBBY
Return to article
8 Mr Meiklejohn may have
recorded this name incorrectly. Evidence elsewhere suggests it should be
ESTHER NELSON
Return to article
9 According to the annual
reports of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, BURTON JAMES died suddenly in December
1951. FLORENCE JAMES taught summer courses in Saskatchewan from 1950 until
1953, when she became full-time Drama Consultant with the Arts Board. When
she retired in 1968 the renovated auditorium at the new Saskatchewan Summer
School of the Arts was named James Hall in her honour. Mrs James died in
1988 at the age of 95. Her dedication to theatre and education prompted
a moving eulogy from MAVOR MOORE, 'Theatre pioneer was a welcome U.S. invader,'
Globe and Mail, 13 Feb 1988
Return to article
10 Mr Meiklejohn's presence
is noted in WINIFRED WARD's report on this conference,
Educational Theatre
Journal 2 (1950), p 203
Return to article
11 H S HURN, director
of the School and Community Drama Branch from 1947 to 1954, was known universally
as 'Bunny' Hurn
Return to article
12 Ms BURGER was also
the author of Creative Play Acting: Learning through Drama (New
York: A S Barnes, 1950)
Return to article
13 This is not quite accurate.
While Newfoundland entered Confederation in 1949 it apparently never entered
into any cost-sharing agreements with the Physical Fitness Division
Return to article
14 LEE had been Director
of Recreational and Physical Fitness for British Columbia's Department
of Education from 1945 to 1949. He served as National Director of Physical
Fitness from Oct 1949 to Dec 1950
Return to article
15 Coste House was a Calgary
mansion taken over by the city during the Depression for delinquent taxes.
In 1946 it was leased to the Allied Arts Board for $1 per year, and became
one of Canada's most vital centres for post-war cultural expansion
Return to article
16 This was GERALDINE
BRAIN SIKS, the author of several books on children's theatre and creative
dramatics
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17 Actually, the Okanagan
Drama Festival, which Mr Meiklejohn adjudicated, was held in Oliver, 15-16
May 1953. A report is given in the Penticton Herald, 20 May 1953,
2nd section, p 6
Return to article
18 HURN may have known
that his job was about to be phased out. This was 1953, the last year of
operation of the School and Community Drama Branch
Return to article
19 Mr Meiklejohn probably
saw the 'Lancaster Company', a professional group which split off from
Victoria's York Theatre Company and embarked on a tour of Vancouver Island
at the time of the DDF Final Festival in Victoria. See 'Actors to tour
Island,' Victoria Daily Colonist, 6 May 1953, p 13. The Tobacco
Road company in fact came to Victoria the week after the Festival,
playing at the York Theatre (now the McPherson Playhouse) 14-23 May 1953
Return to article
20 CARL HARE was later
head of theatre departments at the University of Victoria and the University
of Alberta. He was also the founding artistic director of Company One,
an improvisational ensemble which toured Canada in the early 1970s. Mr
Meiklejohn was a president of the board of directors of Company One for
most of the company's existence
Return to article
21 BETTY MITCHELL (1896-1976)
gained a national reputation as a teacher and stage director. Her honourary
doctorate was awarded in 1958, and the Betty Mitchell Theatre opened in
1962
Return to article
22 This may have been
ESTHER NELSON, a former schoolteacher from Ponoka, Alberta, who had toured
with Sydney Risk's Everyman Theatre in the late 1940s. See JAMES HOFFMAN,
'Sydney Risk and the Everyman Theatre', B.C. Studies 76 (Winter
1987-88) p 39 et passim
Return to article
23 In 1947 the Bessborough
Trophy went to Père EMILE LEGAULT's production of Molière's
Le
Médecin malgré lui, which brought his company, Les Compagnons
de St-Laurent, their first recognition in English Canada
Return to article
24 Born in Kansas in 1910,
ROBERT E GARD first came to Canada in 1942 as a playwriting instructor
at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He remained in Canada to develop a project
in folklore and local history with the University of Alberta Department
of Extension. One result of the project, which was funded by the Rockefeller
Foundation, was GARD's popular juvenile book
Johnny Chinook: Tall Tales
and True from the Canadian West (Longmans, Green, 1945). While in Canada
he also wrote a number of radio plays, a popular Canadian stage play, Johnny
Dunn,
and a popular Canadian folk-song, 'The Ballad of Frank Slide.'
In 1945 he moved to the University of Wisconsin, where he taught for over
thirty years. The author of some thirty books, GARD describes his Alberta
projects in chapter 2 of a semi-autobiographical volume, Grassroots
Theater: A Search for Regional Arts in America (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1955)
Return to article
25 TOMMY DOUGLAS was the
CCF premier of Saskatchewan, 1944-61. His daughter SHIRLEY DOUGLAS and
his grandson KIEFER SUTHERLAND are both distinguished professional actors.
W S LLOYD was DOUGLAS' long-time Minister of Education, and his successor
as premier. CLARENCE FINES was the Provincial Treasurer from 1944 to 1960
Return to article
26 Saskatchewan's Division
of Physical Fitness was set up under the Department of Public Health in
1944, and (as Physical Fitness and Recreation) was transferred to the Department
of Education in 1948. Mrs BURGESS (1895-1984) worked for the Division from
1945 to 1961. She had studied under FLORENCE JAMES at the UBC Summer School
of the Theatre, so presumably was responsible for bringing the Jameses
to Saskatchewan
Return to article
27 ROBERT JARMAN was director
of physical education for Winnipeg schools for 22 years, and for the city
of Winnipeg for fourteen years. At the time of his death he was executive
manager of the Winnipeg Little Theatre. See 'Robert Jarman dies adjudicating,'
Winnipeg Free Press, 18 April 1953
Return to article
28 This statement appears
misleading, as JOHN HIRSCH came to Canada in 1947, a year before Mr Meiklejohn
began working for the Physical Fitness Division. Perhaps Mr Meiklejohn
advised him against pursuing a theatrical career in Canada, or against
returning to Canada after studying abroad
Return to article
29 I have not been able
to find the date on which this occurred. But it was more likely in the
1950s than the 1960s, since Mr Meiklejohn stopped working for the Department
of National Health and Welfare in 1955
Return to article
30 WILLIAM ANGUS taught
at Queen's University from 1937 to 1963. He was appointed Director of Drama
in 1941, when students of Queen's Drama Guild petitioned the Principal
and Board of Trustees for such a position. Details on his career may be
found in ERDMUTE WALDHAUER's Drama at Queen's (1991), published
by the Department of Drama at Queen's University
Return to article
31 The Queen's University
Archives explains: 'Dr Angus did direct a series of classical dramas in
the 1940s that were produced in Ottawa. According to the Queen's Review
... these were sponsored by the Ottawa Branch of the Alumni and I expect
that is what is meant by "Queen's Week."' In the same letter (28 June 1989),
the Archives notes that the DDF regional festival was held in Convocation
Hall, not Grant Hall
Return to article
32 The Community Programmes
Branch within Ontario's Department of Education was established in April
1948
Return to article
33 In fact, EDGAR STONE
died in 1977 at the age of 80
Return to article
34 These included director
TIM BOND and actor SAUL RUBINEK
Return to article
35 Mr Meiklejohn is correct
about the acclaim, but perhaps not about the play. According to a published
chronology, RITTENHOUSE's first production at West Hill was A Midsummer
Night's Dream, designed by HERBERT WHITTAKER, in 1934. His other Shakespearean
productions there in the 1930s included As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet,
and The Taming of the Shrew. See PATRICK G NEILSON, 'Charles
Burket Rittenhouse: Theatrical Avocations and Affiliations, 1925-1976,'
THIC/HTC 4,1 (Spring 1983)
Return to article
36 The Canadian One-Act
Playwriting Competition, originally sponsored by the Ottawa Little Theatre
Workshop, has been held annually since 1937. According to NEILSON"s chronology
(see preceding note) CHARLES RITTENHOUSE adjudicated this competition from
1943 to 1946
Return to article
37 Besides Overlaid
(1947), Eros at Breakfast (1948), and Fortune, My Foe (1948),
Mr Meiklejohn directed Come-by-Chance (1950), an historical musical
celebrating Canada's tenth province, and Argus Bank (1951), a labour
drama set in Halifax. All of these were presented at the Little Theatre
in Ottawa, with the three DAVIES plays also entered in the Dominion Drama
Festival
Return to article
38 BARBARA MEIKLEJOHN
comments: 'Bilingual here meant mainly French - who naturally don't get
English rhythms right'
Return to article
39 LEGAULT was named an
Officer of the Order of Canada in December 1980, which suggests that Mr
Meiklejohn wrote this memoir early in 1981
Return to article
40 First produced in Paris
in 1945, Les Gueux au paradis was a play adapted by ANDRÉ
OBEY and Belgian playwright GASTON MARTENS from an earlier play by MARTENS.
LEGAULT won the Bessborough Trophy in 1947 with Le Médecin malgré
lui and in 1951 with Les Gueux au paradis. His version of Anouilh's
Antigone would probably have won in 1948 as well, had not adjudicator
ROBERT SPEAIGHT, in one of the DDF's most sensational moments, disqualified
the production for bowdlerizing the text. See LUCY VAN GOGH, 'Adjudicator
justified in noting cut text,' Saturday Night 63,33 (22 May 1948)
p 17
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41 According to The
Canadian Encyclopedia PEI finally gave up 'the noble experiment' in
1948 (IV, p 1765)
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42 Presumably this was
R WATSON SELLAR, who was Auditor General from 1940 to 1959
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43 HELEN SMITH was the
last president of Theatre Canada, heir to the DDF. She appeared in at least
three productions directed by the Meiklejohns for the Victoria Theatre
Guild in the 1970s
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44 L.A. DeWOLFE was not
Superintendent of Education, but rather for many years the department's
Director of Rural Education. He retired in 1943, but remained active in
the educational field
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45 Mr WETMORE was born
in Truro NS in 1907, and studied at Acadia University and at the University
of Virginia. He worked for Nova Scotia's Department of Education from 1946
to 1972, and in 1981 was made an honorary life member of the Association
for Canadian Theatre History
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46 In this regard, an
overseas training program for Canadian directors was instituted in 1967
by GEORGE MERTEN of the Ontario Arts Council, a figure mentioned earlier
in this article. The program arranged for professional apprenticeships
in Britain for such Canadian theatre founders as COLIN GORRIE, MARTIN KINCH,
and JOHN PALMER
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47 In fact it was the
Liberal government that repealed the Act in 1954, although administration
of the Act continued until agreements in force with individual provinces
had all expired. Mr Meiklejohn was a life-long Fabian socialist, which
perhaps accounts for his blaming a Tory government for the loss of his
position
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48 BRIAN WAY, a leader
in educational drama in Britain, visited Canada in 1958 and 1959. He gave
workshops those years at DDF Final Festivals in Halifax and Toronto, as
well as other workshops and short courses elsewhere in Canada. I have not
found any documentation of visits earlier than these, as the involvement
of the Physical Fitness Division would suggest. BRIAN WAY's visits of 1958
and 1959 led directly to the founding of the Canadian Child and Youth Drama
Association (CCYDA). His influence on creative dramatics and children's
theatre in Canada continued to grow in subsequent decades, through his
seminal book Development through Drama (London: Longman, 1967) and
through his work with MARGARET FAULKES in Edmonton and the KRAMERS in Saskatchewan.
See DENIS W JOHNSTON, Models for Drama/Theatre Education in the Secondary
Schools of British Columbia (M.A. thesis, University of Victoria, 1982)
pp 48-58
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