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Reviewed by:
  • Sharon Pollock: First Woman of Canadian Theatre ed. by Donna Coates
  • Lynn Deboeck
SHARON POLLOCK: FIRST WOMAN OF CANADIAN THEATRE. Edited by Donna Coates. The West series, no. 8. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2015; pp. 336.

Sharon Pollock: First Woman of Canadian Theatre is a collection of essays that provocatively reconsider the legacy of one of the central figures of Canadian theatre. In this important volume, editor Donna Coates has compiled a series of essays that examine (or reexamine) Pollock's neglected or misunderstood works, analyze her approaches using new methods, and recognize the breadth of her contributions to theatre and performance.

While some essays in this volume use unorthodox approaches, most are conventional analyses of Pollock's dramatic oeuvre. Jerry Wasserman, for example, an American who moved to Canada during the Vietnam drafts, writes about Pollock's play Walsh, noting her treatment of the mythology surrounding Canada's approach to refugees and other people deemed "outsiders." He connects Pollock's work to the historical context of the period during which it was first produced, particularly noting the Mild West/Wild West dichotomy of Canadian/American comparison myths. Wasserman demonstrates how Pollock's play challenges this myth of the ever-liberal and kinder Canada, by highlighting the repetitive use of these myths by Canadians to claim the (not-always-deserved) moral high ground. Shelley Scott takes up Pollock's unsolved murder plays, highlighting that the motivations for using real-life stories revolve around Pollock's eliciting deeper effects in the audience by casting them as the jury. Kathy Chung looks at Fair Liberty's Call, arguing that its exploration of loss and mourning—often overlooked by scholars—is expressed in the play through elements of liminality. Chung specifically highlights the absent presence of Pollock's deceased mother and how this ghost, who is not referenced in the script, has a palpable effect on the characters who carry the sense of loss into the more obvious narratives of war, human rights, and injustice. Delving into Pollock's autobiographical work Doc, Cynthia Zimmerman confronts how the play ironically makes it possible to avoid the perspective of Catherine—the character who is the stand-in for Pollock herself—and how directorial decisions contribute to this neglect. Referencing Pollock's own admission in an interview that Doc is meant to be Catherine's story, Zimmerman looks at two different productions (one from 1984, the other from 2010), teasing out the ways that the direction shaped how Catherine's perspective was either retained or lost. Zimmerman highlights how the 1984 production (and many others from this period) represented Catherine's character as impotent and at times invisible—refusing to acknowledge or explore her story arc, whereas the 2010 production she references took measures to shift Catherine to the fore, making explicit her struggle and journey.

Acknowledging Pollock's numerous interests with regard to her practice as a theatre-maker and playwright, Wes Pearce illustrates the ways in which she utilized scenography to push the bounds of the art form. Capitalizing on the deep and pervasive value that Pollock found in design, Pearce contends that scholars have overlooked the connection between the writer and her visual world, thereby ignoring her development of a new "fragmented or radical scenography" that, while frequently used today, was considered ahead of its time at its inception (84). Carmen Derkson uses a "reparative critical practice" to bring forth the ways that Pollock uses auditory devices in the script to reveal indigenous presence, a feature initially overlooked by critics. By highlighting the historical contexts and ramifications of the American Revolution on Canadian history and indigenous cultures, Derkson acknowledges the different ways of learning on which Pollock capitalizes, such as the aural focus that "emphasize[s] sound and its relationship to listening practices in order to foreground indigenous presence" (108).

Several authors also document the significant contributions to theatre made by Pollock through her leadership and outreach. In particular, Martin Marrow and Jeton Neziraj elaborate her reputation as a fierce defender of artistic integrity and a committed global-community member. Marrow considers Pollock's founding and leadership of the Garry Theatre between 1992 and 1997, and references other moments in...

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