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Articles

Volume 8 Number 2 / Fall 1987

Roy Mitchell: Prophet in Our Past

Submitted
May 13, 2008
Published
1987-06-06

Abstract

Roy Mitchell, Canadian pioneer of modernism in the theatre, has been largely ignored by Canadian theatre historians and publishers. Creative Theatre (1929), his summa, was republished in 1969 - in the United States. It is the purpose of this article to give an overview of Mitchell's innovative theoretical ideas (as expressed in his three books and numerous articles); of the early practical work at the Arts and Letters Club and at Hart House Theatre, which led to these ideas; and of the interrelationship between Mitchell's aesthetics of the theatre and his theosophist beliefs. Roy Mitchell, pionnier du modernisme théâtral, demeure à peu près inconnu aux historiens de théâtre et aux libraires-éditeurs canadiens. Creative Theatre (1929), le summum de Mitchell, a été republié en 1969 - aux Etats-Unis. Cet article décrit brièvement les théories avant-gardistes de Mitchell; ses débuts pratiques à l'Arts and Letters Club et au Hart House Theatre qui aboutirent à ces théories; et les rapports entre son esthétique théâtrale et ses croyances théosophistes.