\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

FIRST STAGESUSAN STONE-BLACKBURN, Robertson Davies,Playwright. Univ. of British Columbia, n.p.they began to inform his work in the late1950's. Her analyses of General Confessionand Question Time seem especiallythorough, drawing as they do on aknowledge of Davies' wide reading andof his exploration of the same ideas inthe novels.But it is exactly here, where Stone-Blackburn's techniques of literary analysisare brought to bear so impressively,that I am most conscious of the limitationsof her study. The essentially thematicapproach adopted throughoutleads the author to an insoluble dilemma— if she is right, then Canadian directors,actors, critics, and audiences mustbe wrong. For the paradox of RobertsonDavies the playwright is that while he isone of the most erudite, cultivated, andgraceful authors to have written for thestage in this country, he has had practicallyno lasting effect on the developmentof our drama. Therefore to discussGeneral Confession as a "masterpiece,"although the work has never been performedand has been consistently turneddown by theatrical managements, is toexhibit a peculiar kind of critical bravado.Indeed, Robertson Davies, Playwrightillustrates vividly the malaise affectingmuch published discussion of Canadiandrama. The academics who do most ofthe criticizing and assessing of plays arewoefully out of touch with the artistsresponsible for producing and performingthem. Scholars like to get their informationfrom books, and Canadian actorsand directors (unlike their British coun-THE UNIVERSITY OF British ColumbiaPress continues to demonstrate a commendableinterest in Canadian drama.The present volume follows RenateUsmiani's survey of the alternative theatre,and appropriately enough begins anexamination of what the "second stage"was reacting against. If there is a playwrightin the country with some claim tohaving helped create our "first stage,"Robertson Davies is that dramatist.Davies is probably the closest we haveto a "Dean" of Canadian letters, a positionhe has deservedly won by dint of anastonishingly varied career. Older readersremember him as a kind of "Fleet Streetintellectual," a literary Jack-of-all-tradeswho could turn his pen with equal skillto essays or journalism, and serve aseditor, teacher, or academic administrator.Younger readers know him as theauthor of the Deptford trilogy and oneof our most skilful novelists. Stone-Blackburn's focus on the plays remindsus that Davies' first love was the theatre.The book is arranged chronologicallyand begins with Davies' youthful fascinationwith the visiting British companiesthat toured Ontario with productions ofShakespeare, Goldsmith, and such nineteenth-centurymelodramas as The Countof Monte Cristo. It deals with his Oxfordyears, his contact with scholars suchas Neville Coghill, directors such as TyroneGuthrie, and his own experiences asterparts)actor at the Old Vic. It describes hisearly unsuccessful attempts to write forthe West End, and his triumphantachievements in the amateur and professionaltheatre in Canada in the 1950's.Perhaps the most valuable part of thebook is Stone-Blackburn's analysis ofDavies' interest in the ideas of Jung asBOOKS IN REVIEWrarely express themselves inprint. Stone-Blackburn is to be commendedfor interviewing a large numberof performers involved in the productionof Davies' plays. But the comments ofthese performers have been filteredthrough an essentially literary sensibility.There is no discussion in the book of thetechnical problems presented by theplays. What are the characters like to189