RAMON HATHORN
The recent publication of L'Eglise et le théâtre au Québec provides the theatre historian with a long overdue but welcome analysis of the trials and tribulations of the Quebec theatre in the light of three centuries of ecclesiastical strictures. The aim of Messrs Laflamme and Tourangeau is ambitious: to describe the role of the Catholic clergy of Quebec with respect to the theatre and in particular to illustrate the attitudes of the religious authorities by appropriate reference to official clerical publications. Within a broad temporal framework (1606-1962) the authors focus on plays performed in French, particularly by foreign troupes, although passing reference is made to Protestant sects and the occasional English play.
The book is divided into three approximately equal parts which are preceded by a detailed bibliography and a lengthy introduction. The former lists both manuscript and printed sources ranging from private archives, such as parish and diocesan records, to the numerous volumes of the Quebec Bishops' Mandements, as well as many Quebec newspapers and periodicals. The latter provides a useful historical survey of the Church's mistrust of the theatre which, as the authors point out, varied in intensity according to place and local circumstance. The Fathers of the Church condemned the theatre outright; their successors in medieval Italy and France were more tolerant, while Bossuet's proscription of the theatre in 1694 had finally lost much of its thunder in France by the nineteenth century.
The first section of the book, entitled 'Rigorisme de l'Eglise et hésitations du théâtre', contains two chapters. The first, dealing with New France from 1606 to 1760, describes the organization of the colonial Church, the clerical attitudes to dances and other amusements and the well-known condemnation in 1694 by the Bishop of Quebec, Mgr de Saint-Vallier, of a planned performance of Tartuffe. The second chapter delineates events in Quebec between the Conquest and the Rebellion of 1837. Molière plays staged by English officers in 1774 and 1780 are followed by a series of quarrels involving both troupes and plays: the 'Théâtre de société' of Montreal (1789); Quesnel's Colas et Colinette (1790) and Voltaire's La Mort de Jules César (1815). An excellent summary of Chapter Two points out that, from 1736 to 1836, the senior Quebec clergy issued no major pronouncements against the theatre, but the clergy at the parish level made ample use of sermons, letters and newspapers to ward off 'les dangers de la comédie'.
Part Two's title, 'Conservatisme de l'Eglise et contestations du théâtre', perhaps understates the attitudes of three Bishops in particular: Monseigneurs Bourget and Fabre of Montreal and Cardinal Taschereau of Quebec City. In Chapter Three, two dates stand out: the approval by the British authorities of the foundation of Montreal in 1836 and the unsuccessful rebellion in 1837-38 which reinforced the authority of Bishop Bourget and the clergy in general. Up to 1859, suggest the authors, the rarity of local troupes and the relative absence of foreign ones give little ground for clerical comment. But ideological antagonisms between the Bishop of Montreal, the Institut Canadien and certain outspoken newspapers lead to Bourget's condemnation of Le Pays (1860), of the Institut Canadien (1868) and to widespread clerical criticism of the growing number of appearances by foreign troupes.
Chapter Four aptly describes the period 1876-1896 as the 'apogee of clerical power'. The conciliatory attitude of Bourget's successor, Fabre, contrasts at first with that of Taschereau of Quebec City and La Flèche of Trois-Rivières, but from 1885, episcopal warnings about the theatre and other amusements intensify as the number of theatres increases and the public taste for Sunday entertainment develops. This chapter, rich in detail, describes well a society in evolution, one where ultra-montanism confronts liberalism and where old ideas reluctantly give way to the new. It recognizes as well the end of an era signalled by the deaths of Fabre, Taschereau and La Flèche, three powerful guardians of public morals in nineteenth-century Quebec.
The last section of the book, 'Moralisme de l'Eglise et provocations du théâtre', describes clerical attitudes to the theatre at the turn of the century, during the conflict of 1914-18, the Depression and the socially turbulent years following the Second World War. In Chapter Five, Bishops Bégin of Quebec and Bruchési of Montreal continue their crusades against the theatre, with condemnations of the Théâtre de Québec (1894), Réjane (1905), Sarah Bernhardt (1905), and theatres in both Montreal and Quebec City (1907-1909). The authors underline the importance of the Lord's Day Act (1907), the pinpointing of the new cinema as another possible source of moral danger and the reluctance of the Quebec government to enforce to the letter the new Sabbath statutes.
The final chapter describes the changes in public mores after World War One and the general reluctance of the laity to follow strictly the Bishops' guidelines for attendance of the theatre and observation of the Lord's Day. The 1930's, suggest the authors, are marked by the growth of radio and cinema and continuing fear by the Church of the mingling of the sexes on stage. Ironically, as the authors point out, in 1937, two priests face this problem head on: Fathers Lamarche and Legault, who attempt a renewal of positive interest in the theatre by improving the artistic quality of the theatrical production and by Christianizing its content. In the post-war years, lay organizations tend to take over episcopal warnings about the stage. One notable exception, however, is Cardinal Léger's sermon in 1954 which spoke briefly of the theatre's potential for good and vigorously condemned it for 'glorifying crime and adultery'.
The preceding résumé of L'Eglise et le théâtre au Québec represents a subjective chronological culling of its contents. It necessarily omits a large number of allusions to topics of general interest: the numerous references to amateur groups in Quebec, for example; the various segments touching on theatrical productions in the 'collèges classiques'; the strict control of similar productions in convent schools which frequently suggest to this reader much male chauvinism as well as 'moral mindedness'. The Introduction, too, points out that no universal law of the Catholic Church condemns the theatre and yet, the intense and unremitting rejections at the regional level contrast strangely with this 'non-existent moral principle'. And the Conclusion perceptively underlines two facets of the Quebec Church's criticism of the theatre: the obvious concern for 'sins of the flesh' and the more subtle rejection of the stage as a vehicle for 'foreign' ideas and non-traditional values and therefore for social and moral change.
Professors Laflamme and Tourangeau have opted for a chronological study of official Church attitudes to the stage and, in so doing, have amassed an enormous amount of historical documentation. Their method of dividing the book into three major periods and each of these into two chapters gives coherence to three centuries of history. And their subdividing of each chapter into separate units enables them to include both social and political insights without the reader's losing the direct thread of the narrative. Most important and successful of all are the excellent résumés of each chapter which summarize the major events of the period described and impose order on a wide range of dates and events.
In their effort to be objective, the authors frequently attempt to situate episcopal criticism of the theatre in its social and temporal context, and quite rightly so. But occasionally they overstate the case. Underlining the recent attitudinal changes to the stage since Vatican II, our colleagues suggest it is erroneous to believe that the 'battle' between Church and Theatre pitted 'two hostile adversaries' against each other and that, despite strong mistrust by the Church, there has never been 'any truly reciprocal hostility' (p 353). Another study must obviously be made, one which traces the positive encouragement of the theatrical arts by the religious communities of Quebec in the last century or so, before one might concur definitively with the preceding statements.
Similarly, the authors, warning the modern reader against blaming the Bishops for the violation of personal liberties in the light of contemporary attitudes, suggest that despite numerous restrictions, Christian civilization was nonetheless 'the freest in the world'. Cardinal Taschereau, in a passage immediately following, responds to the recently published encyclical of Leo XIII in 1888. He points out that 'freedom of thought, the press, education or religion may be tolerated but only if this tolerance leads to good and not to evil' (pp 188-189). The interpretation of 'evil', even at the end of the nineteenth century, no doubt varied at the practical level depending on the milieu. I rather suspect that the Church's attitude to the stage in England and France or even in Ontario was probably less severe than in Quebec and Montreal.
Elsewhere we read that Cardinal Léger inaugurated 'a new way of looking at the theatre with adult eyes' (p 342). Here, the abstract concept suggests a radical change in thinking. But is this the result of new levels of clerical tolerance or simply the hard realities of a society that simply refuses to listen and obey? And at the parish level, where the question of an 'informed conscience' was frequently subject to the personal opinion of the local confessor, to what extent did this revised theological approach have any effect at all at the individual level? These questions are not easily answered and suggest rich materials to be mined by historians and sociologists.
L'Eglise et le théâtre au Québec represents an invaluable addition to the theatre historian's bookshelf. Regrettably, it lacks an index which should be an essential part of any scholarly volume. But, well-documented, attractively presented and most carefully edited (only two minor typographical errors: cf. p 115, p 119), it amplifies basic facts already mentioned by previous scholars and introduces much valuable new information. Our colleagues from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and their publishers are to be congratulated!