The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies by Ric Knowles (review)

Reviews 109 mentator. A hint of sarcasm peeks through, however, when Filewod begins a paragraph with "[hlaving established Stratford as the summit of Canadian theatre , Mallet was dismayed by the controversial events of 1980" (367), and when he observes that "because her 'philosophy' was essentially ideological, occasional contradictions between her taste and her principles could be reconciled by shifting the terms of assessment" (365). The quotation marks around "philosophy" are perhaps not so subtle, but the final impression of Filewod's essay is of a devastating critique rendered in the most professionally detached style. In his essay on Urjo Kareda, Denis Johnston has the enviable task of analysing the work of the most intelligent, perceptive, and consistent of all the subjects in this volume, Nathan Cohen notwithstanding. Johnston points out that "career reporters considered Kareda a misplaced academic in a working class environment" (294). Certainly Kareda was destined to move on to more challenging venues, but his abiHty as a reviewer to champion Canadian drama while still providing sharp analysis raised (temporarily, at least) the level of reviewing to the level of criticism. Johnston's essay constitutes a welldeserved tribute. One detail is missing, however. Ignoring Arrell's caveat, Johnston never mentions Kareda's attacks on Leon Major during Major's tenure as artistic director at the S1. Lawrence Centre. The measure of Kareda's work is certainly not to be taken by his shots at Major, but the episode is worth mentioning. I was grateful to Mayte Gomez for her study of the reviews of Oscar Ryan, with which I was not familiar, and to James Hoffman for his study of the work of Christopher Dafoe, a reviewer unknown to me. Ira Levine's study of the work of the ubiquitous Don Rubin brought the "Cultural Nationalism" section to a ringing conclusion. ] wasn't sure that the work of Marianne Ackerman was the best choice to represent the anglophone voice in Quebec, but Leanore LiebIein's essay makes aconvincing case. Establishing Our Boundaries is an altogether informative and stimulating book. It covers the topic from sea to sea and from the beginnings to the present. Everyone of the contributors conscientiously addresses the task of placing in context the individual and the work. This book is a major contribution to Canadian theatre history in an often scorned and rarely studied arena. RIC KNOWLES. The Theatre ofForm and the Production ofMeaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies. Montreal: ECW, 1999. Pp. 288. $19.95 (Pb). Reviewed by Reid Gilbert, Capilano College In 1992, Ric Knowles published an important article in Theatre Research International in which he developed a theory of dramatic "perversity" built on 110 REVIEWS "inlertexls thai operale on Ihe level of slructure and semiolics wilhout f...] conjuring any conscious refleclion of specific lexts" (234-35, note 24). This theory is revisited and taken much further in The Theatre ofForm and tlze Production of Meaning. Here, Knowles differentiates slructure and form and, in both, examines intertexts in a manner he calls "somewhat artificial" but which is nonetheless highly useful. He leads on from Jameson's "concept of 'the political unconscious'" (229, note 3) of texts to search for disruptions in "form" (as the "generic organizing syslems" of genre and performance style) and its subset , "structure" (as "more overtly selected or constructed [...J organizing strategies [...] less likely to draw on pre-existing generic expectations of audiences") (229, note I). For Knowles, "perverse" dramaturgy interrogates the deep structure of performance in order to expose and (attempt to) dislodge meta-narratives, theatrical styles. vocabularies, and social/gender constructions that are, as he puts it in relation to R. Murray Schafer's Patria cycle, "conservative , elitist, antidemocratic, colonialist, culturally appropriative, and antifeminist " (173). A reaction against the "familiar mythical narrative[s] embodied in Greek mythology and the Christian Bible" (172) underpins Ihe sludy, generaling a book Ihat is highly political, as is much of Knowles's earlier writing. The book, in facl, brings together previously published work with new material . As a result, it is something of a retrospective of the trenchant criticism that has made Knowles one of the most respected and innovative of writers on Canadian drama, but this presenl study is a comprehensive working...