How to Play: The Theatre of James Reaney by Gerald D. Parker (review)

Book Reviews GERALD D. PARKER. How to Play: The Theatre of.lames Reaney. Toronto: ECW Press, 1991. Pp. 315. $25.00 (PB). Gerald D. Parker has written an important book on the theatre of James Reaney, in which he gives him his rightful place among the innovators of twentieth-century drama. The book is divided into three long chapters, each dealing with a particular aspect ofReaney's theatre, and two of them taking their titles from Reaney himself. The first chapter, entitled "This Native Land Business," emphasizes the importance to Reaney of Canada and of his own region, Southwestern Ontario, or what he calls "the native tradition." Parker aptly demonstrates how Reaney became convinced that such a tradition exists by reading Canadian poets and by studying and working with Canadian painters such as Greg Cumoe and Jack Chambers. Parker at times is overly critical of Reaney's low-key nationalism by referring to is as "boosterism" and his "nativist kick." Even the title of the chapter, from Gertrude Stein, is dismissive of Reaney's nationalism compared with the phrase "native tradition" used by Reaney himself. Chapter Two, "Making Up Patterns (Scribbling With Your Body/Bodies)" is concerned with the symbolic and visual elements in Reaney's theatre. and shows how truly innovative Reaney was in Canadian theatre. It also shows how close his own experiments were to those of leading modem painters and theatre practitioners - to Klee, Kandinsky, and Mir6; and to Yeats, Meyerhold, Craig, Voaden, Tairov, Copeau, Artaud, Chaikin, Brook and Schechner. Parker reinforces his analogies by examining most of Reaney's plays and the workshops from which many of them emerged, The third and longest chapter, "The Magic Tongue," concentrates on the linguistic versatility of Reaney, and how he integrates it with the scenic dimensions of his theatre . Again, Parker analyses most of the plays, with special emphasis on the The DOllne //ys. and shows how Reaney is capable of "seemingly limitless pennutations in different verbal keys" (254), Parker also notes a falling off in some of the later plays such as WaCollsta! and The Canadian Brothers, But .the achievement of the book is to show how Reaney, like the finest of modern dramatists, "discovered 'The Theatre Unbound.' with its unrestrained urge to try to express everything" (293). The book does have some shortcomings. The title suggests more emphasis on the act of playing. and even on the enjoyment many have experienced by participating in Reaney's plays. Unfortunately the book is unduly technical and even repetitious. It needs more exploration of the process by which Reaney discovered his "idea of a theatre ," One way to do this would be to report more of the conversations with people who worked with him, such as Keith Turnbull and Jerry Franken. More could have been reported on the Listeners' Workshops in London, Ontario and elsewhere where Reaney developed his communitarian style of theatre. A note on the now famous playwright Tomson Highway tells us that he participated in the workshops on WaCollsta! in the late I 97os; more information of this sort would be useful and would credit more of the people with whom Reaney discovered his own dramatic style. The book is generally free of factual errors, but a few stand out: a different page 688 Book Reviews number (23 and 109) is given for the same quotation from Reaney's oft-quoted "The Canadian Poet's Predicament"; there are many references to Reaney's Three Desks as The Three Desks; and Sherrill Grace is referred to as Grace Sherrill in the Works Cited section, and as Sherrill after a reference (132), though I suspect this is not the first book in which Professor Grace has been acknowledged in this way. Overall, this is a splendid book on the theatre of James Reaney. It should contribute much to his being recognized as the innovator he is not only in Canadian drama, but in modern drama as a whole. Such recognition can only lead to his being read and produced more not only in Canada, but beyond his native land. JAMES NOONAN, CARLETON UNIVERSITY ...