Afterword

Afterword JOANNE TOMPKINS A popular (mis)perception regarding contemporary Canadian theatre is that its origins lie in the 1953 establishment of the Stratford Festival, which continues to perform mostly Shakespeare and his contemporaries, in the appropriately named small southwestern Ontario town. It is to some extent true that the Stratford Festival, as a repository of cultural power, has dominated theatre in Canada for fifty years. The establishment of the Festival was sponsored by Vincent Massey. then Canadian Governor General, who wished to develop a recognizable location of "culture" in what was typically seen as a "young" country, even though performance in Canada dates back to 1606 and covers numerous genres and socio-political topics. The Stratford Festival was joined by the Shaw Festival in 1962, performing George Bernard·Shaw and his contemporaries , also in a small Ontario town, Niagara-on-the-Lake, situated near the border with the United States. The concentration of these subsidized festivals in Ontario has not escaped the notice of the rest of the large country. of course. This Ontario-centrism becomes all the· more worthy of comment when, for many theatre patrons, the productions in the Stratford and Shaw festival seasons represent small garrisons of "culture" in an otherwise barren wilderness. Attempts to manufacture high culture - through Shakespeare, Shaw, Chekhov , and other canonical figures - have been successful in attracting tourists and patrons, and the numerous, smaller-scale Shakespeare festivals that continue to operate across the country reinforce a fascination with Shakespeare's plays (see, for instance,