Shaw Lives!

The Shaw Festival Production Record 1962–2007, writes Leonard Conolly in his introduction, is "essential documentary evidence of the life of a vibrant cultural force in Canada—whose impact reverberates far beyond its borders—and a tribute to the hundreds of people whose achievements of over nearly fifty years of theatrical activity at The Shaw are here recorded." And what a mine of evidence it is: a comprehensive record of each production at the annual Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, from its inaugural season of two plays presented over four weekends in 1962 to the ten plays staged over seven months in 2007.

Each season appears chronologically, with the season number printed conveniently beneath the year ("2007 / FORTY-SIXTH SEASON"), and listed are its opening and closing dates (including previews) and total number of performances. In addition to each play's venue, performance dates, dramatis personae, director, and stage manager, there are credits for set, lighting, sound, costume design, choreography, and musical direction. Because names are printed in two well-spaced columns (role to the left, player to the right), the pages are uncluttered and easy to navigate; in a book such as this, it could have been otherwise.

There are also three appendices: "The Toronto Project," an initiative that, from 1982 to 1988, extended the Shaw Festival into Toronto during the winter season and widened its mandate to include contemporary work in collaboration with Toronto theater companies; the ongoing "The Directors Project," begun in 1988, allowing intern directors and assistant designers at the festival to present one-act plays to company members and invited theater professionals; and "Production Summary Plays Produced," listing all plays by season and venue: Court House Theatre, Festival Theatre, and Royal George Theatre. One play, an adaptation of Orwell's 1984, was performed in all three theaters, the Academy Warehouse, "and the streets and parks of Niagara-on-the-Lake."

Such a compendium would be ineffectual without an index, and this book has three: "Works Produced" (with Shaw plays italicized); "Authors, Composers, Lyricists" (with resident Shaw Festival composers listed as "Musical Directors" in the third index); and "Actors, Designers, Directors," which includes stage management, choreographers, fight directors, and musical directors. One also finds useful abbreviations for actor, adaptation, instrumentalist, translator, and Toronto Project. The most interesting feature of the indexes is their references not to page numbers but to dates. This allows the reader, for example, to see under "Works Produced" which play was done when—and if it's time to stage it again. Back to Methuselah, for instance, was done in its entirety only once, in 1986 (twelve performances). Geneva, Captain Brassbound's Conversion, and The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet have also been performed only once, Blanco (one reading) as late as 2003. The most frequently staged play thus far, with six productions (397 performances), is You Never Can Tell—with a special performance in the presence of Queen Elizabeth to mark the inauguration in 1973 of the Festival Theatre—followed by Arms and the Man, Candida, Heartbreak House, Misalliance, Major Barbara, The Philanderer, and Pygmalion, with five productions each.

A bonus feature of this book is the illustrations: sixty-three black-and-white photographs, all but twenty-five of Shaw productions, providing a valuable visual record of costumes and set design, some of the latter quite original, such as the enormous Gatling gun in Major Barbara (1998) and, as the book's color front cover, the huge tricycle in the Don Juan in Hell scene from Man and Superman (2004). The photographs also allow readers to see—in action, so to speak—such renowned festival locals as William Hutt, Tony van Bridge, Paxton Whitehead, Christopher Newton, Douglas Rain, Goldie Semple, Kelli Fox, and Michael Ball; and, from the international arena, Stanley Holloway, Ian Richardson, Barry Morse, and Jessica Tandy, among others.

The Shaw Festival Production Record 1962–2007 is based on the first and...