Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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As he describes details of a scene the stage lights up and the inner, naturalistic play begins,
suggesting the play's main narrative is itself a play by Playwright. After Young Man leaves
at the play's end, the final scene reverts to an expressionistic style, and Playwright begins to
write, starting with the stage directions of the play's beginning. The scene suggests that the
pair’s relationship has become material for Playwright’s new play. This meta-theatrical
structure allows the inner play to comment on, and illuminate, Playwright's writing process,
and how his personal, emotional abjection directly moves his creative process forward.
While these bookends do allow the viewer to make a connection between
Playwright's creativity and his gay life, they allow another layer of distance in the reception
of the play's larger, predominate, central narrative. The viewer looks to the inner narrative
as a piece of theatre written by Playwright, with the bookends suggesting that Playwright's
personal experience informs the creative process. The viewer receives three layers of
narrative embedded within each other (the central play is created by, and based on
experiences of Playwright, who in turn, is in a fictive narrative by MacIvor, a narrative
which is loosely based on Williams's circumstances). With this mode of reception, the outer
material (about the playmaking process, a famous playwright's biography and history of
Vancouver theatre), frames and distances the gay-themed work to the layer furthest within.
Critical Reception
Press and other media reviews also create frames for audience reception, and these
are useful in not only allowing a viewer to gauge a play-going experience prior to attending,
but also by offering a researcher an indication as to how the play's themes were interpreted
in performance. Although His Greatness has been performed in other markets (sometimes
with the same script), the material conditions of these performances are far too different (a