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Romancing the Bard: Stratford at Fifty

by Martin Hunter

Martin Hunter’s look at the first 50 years of the popular Stratford Festival is well illustrated with production shots drawn from a gallery of renowned theatre photographers. Each chapter is adorned by pleasing anecdotes and personalities, and Hunter accords rightful due to all the artistic directors who have run the festival.

Hunter’s lack of writing experience, however, is evident througout the text. The thin bibliography is the most telling: it’s hard to believe that a former academic like Hunter consulted no research sources or books beyond the accepted white-bread-and-mayo variety. More disconcerting is the book’s arbitrary nature. Such diverse topics as a history of the festival, costuming, music, rehearsals, apprentice training, and unions are covered, but there is no recognizable progression or internal logic in the sequence of topics or Hunter’s approach to them.

Hunter spends more time on the costuming of Oedipus Rex than on the acting style; he has justifiable praise for Seanna McKenna in Medea but nary an analytical word on the three different styles of the three-woman Chorus; his capsule summaries are sometimes in the present tense, sometimes in the past; and he mixes mediocre or downright bad performances among the genuinely good in his lists of favourites.

Hunter also lacks discretion in his thumbnail sketches of the artistic directors, relying heavily on conversations with Stratford insiders and accepting their gossip as fact. Titillation and prurience are paramount in his approach to Romancing the Bard, as evidenced in his references to Tyrone Guthrie’s “undeclared homosexuality” (based chiefly on the director’s homoerotic interpretations of Othello and The Merchant of Venice) or to Stratford’s rumoured sexual grapevine and casting-couch syndrome.

 

Reviewer: Keith Garebian

Publisher:

DETAILS

Price: $39.95

Page Count: 304 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 1-55002-363-2

Released: Nov.

Issue Date: 2002-1

Categories: Politics & Current Affairs