Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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experience the Arts Club has traditionally mounted. This audience in turn, informs those
theatrical experiences. His Greatness appears to fit with these expectations to a degree.
The play’s presentation of a theatrical imagining of one of the most renowned
playwrights of the twentieth century is informed by its audiences' familiarity with the canon
to create a more sellable product. Susan Bennett notes “audiences are prepared to pay for
(and indeed then expect) a special kind of theatrical event when icons of the profession are
involved” (Bennett, Theatre 100). While she refers to plays featuring known actors or
directors, utilising Williams as both a character and as the “author” of His Greatness's
central narrative likely offers a similar intrigue for an audience. As outlined earlier, the
production’s advertising may also suggest that His Greatness is in fact a play by Williams.
Bennett also states that intertextual productions that borrow from or relate to canonised
texts work to “produce an internal horizon of expectations which will attract audience
through challenging their own, already formed expectations/assumptions . . .” (Bennett,
Theatre 120-121). One might presume that audiences bring “already formed
expectations/assumptions” to His Greatness’s performance. The play’s critical reception,
where most reviewers looked to connections between Williams and his art, appears to
confirm that this occurred.
As a consumable product in the Vancouver Arts Club, His Greatness thus seems
calculated to sell seats. However, given the iconic and canonical references in his text,
MacIvor is coy about directly connecting Playwright to Williams. He instead allows an
audience to infer details about Playwright’s life from their knowledge of a well-known
figure, including some aspects of the character’s sexuality. The text’s references to
sexuality also require the audience to make inferences from euphemisms. These