Canadian Drama and the Critics

Abstract

Professor Conolly bases his selection of the criticism of Canadian drama not on his own choice of plays but on three recently published anthologies: The Penguin Book of Modern Canadian Drama (edited by Richard Plant), Major Plays of the Canadian Theatre 1934-84 (edited by Richard Perkyns), and Modern Canadian Plays (edited by Jerry Wasserman). He adds only four plays of his own choosing: Sticks and Stones, Leaving Home, Waiting for the Parade and The Farm Show. However it may limit his own choices as editor, this is a very practical decision. Students in Canadian drama courses will use this collection, and given the price of individual playtexts, instructors will likely, in the near future at least, work from one or more of these anthologies. With one major exception, the anthologies taken together provide a good range of regions and styles, with representative work by the most important playwrights. The exception is French Canadian drama, which is represented only by Gélinas’ Bousille and the Just. This sharp and powerful play stands for one aspect of Quebec as it used to be (and to some extent still is); but if French Canadian drama has any place in this anthology Bousille should surely be joined by work from the period of ferment that followed the Quiet Revolution, and by the biggest name missing from the book, Michel Tremblay. The inclusion of Bousille alone also has an unfortunate and surely unintended side-effect: it looks like the token French Canadian play. (Not the token Quebec play; Balconville is also included.) It might have been better to omit Bousille altogether, and present this simply as an anthology dealing with English Canadian drama. On those terms the only weakness worth noting is that Voaden’s Hill-Land is the only pre-1950 play; there is no work by Merrill Denison.