The CTR anthology : fifteen plays from Canadian Theatre Review / edited by Alan Filewod.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This volume brings together fifteen of the most significant plays published in CTR between 1974 and 1991.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This anthology bears witness to what the editor calls the "phenomenal growth in Canadian theatre since the early 1970s." It contains a selection of plays first published in Canadian Theatre Review from its first issue in 1974 to its 64th in 1990. Filewod's introduction analyzes the process of canon formation both in the editorial policies guiding publication of plays in the journal and in his own selection. He argues that "all canons enshrine identifiable values"; that in the 1970s CTR's choice of plays was guided by an "essentialist nationalism" reflecting the ideology of the Trudeau Liberal governments; and that by the 1990s, that version of national identity has been disrupted by a complex, pluralistic notion of culture that expanded to include not only regional difference but different "regions of experience": plays by women and by gay men, for example. Filewod's choice of plays also documents Canadian theater's transformation of the idea of textuality, from the centrality of the written text to various intersections of written and performance text. The quality of the playtexts is high; the range, extraordinary. General; undergraduate and up. R. C. Nunn; Brock University