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Documents of Interest - A Stratford Tempest, April 1974

In April,1974, concerned Canadian theatre directors sent a letter to the Stratford Festival board to express displeasure with the appointment of another British director (Robin Phillips) to lead the company. The group included John Hirsch. Their letter was drafted by Robertson Davies. The document is interesting as it signals a full-fledged expression of nationalist concerns about the Festival.

"We have asked for this meeting because of our concern for the future of the theatre in Canada, and our conviction that the Stratford Festival must play a dominant role in that future. In the broadest terms, we ask what your long-range plan is for the Festival, and what steps you hope to take to integrate it with Canadian theatre.

"When Stratford was founded it began a new era in Canadian theatre, and we have benefitted from its enterprise and courage. Now, it appears that the theatre we represent is taking one direction, and Stratford another. During the past twenty-five years theatre in Canada has advanced in a direction that Stratford does not reflect. Canadian theatre is now working consistently to present world theatre in Canadian terms, to reveal a truly Canadian sensibility, and to advance, under the best circumstances at its command, Canadian plays, and the work of theatre artists in every field. The time has come when we have a right to expect leadership from your theatre, which is the national theatre of our country whether it accepts that title and the accompanying burdens or whether it does not. Your theatre receives the largest public subsidy of any theatre in Canada, and we think the time has come for some public statement as to its function, and its plans for fulfilling that function.

"We fear that Stratford's seeming lack of a coherent long-term policy will bring about a divergence of aims and ideals which can only work against the development of a truly Canadian theatre and thus, in larger terms, against the development of a Canadian culture. We do not want to see two theatres in Canada - ours, and yours - one firmly national and the other imitatively international.

"We are not so naïve as to think that Canadian culture can develop without playing its part in the culture of the western world in our time, nor are we so nationalistic as to wish to exclude from Canadian theatre anything that can nourish and enlarge it. But we are convinced that a Canadian sensibility is now a fact in the theatre as in the other arts, and we are anxious to serve it and strengthen it in a realistic way.

"May we therefore offer for discussion the following points which seem to us to outline what Canada might expect from its national theatre, and assert that the theatres we represent have tried to embody some of them, acknowledging that none of our theatres has been able to encompass them all:

"(1) That a national theatre should interpret the classics of world theatre, and explore the literature of world theatre in the light of a Canadian sensibility, which would imply that it would also,

"(2) Use the best theatrical talent of the country to give something more than perfunctory attention to plays of Canadian origin that need the resources of the best equipped and most highly subsidized theatre in the country.

"(3) That it should exploit the human resources of Canadian theatre by giving mature and experienced Canadian directors, designers, and actors an opportunity to extend their talents within this country, and should bring back artists who have gained experience abroad.

"(4) That it should nurture growing theatre talent by providing it with the opportunity of working with the most mature and experienced theatre talent in Canada.

"(5) That is should enrich our theatrical life by bringing the finest world theatre artists to Stratford from time to time as guests and exemplars, but not as permanent appointees.

"(6) That it should represent the best that is Canadian in the theatre for audiences here and throughout the world.

"A national theatre is a national resource of incalculable influence and significance. We feel that Stratford should take its responsibilities as a de facto national theatre more seriously than it has done in the past; specifically we suggest that your Board be less heavily weighted with members whose realm of expertise is finance, and should include patrons and practitioners of the arts and a greater representation from the world of scholarship. We suggest that the Board, rather than its artistic direction, be ultimately answerable to Canada for what is done in its national theatre.

"We urge you to reconsider your position with which our own is inextricably linked. It is because of this link that we appeal to you now in a spirit in which co-operation and criticism are necessarily mingled, but in which the will toward co-operation is certainly dominant."

Source: Martin Knelman. A Stratford Tempest. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982.

Last updated 2020-07-29