The Baron Bold and the Beauteous Maid: A Compact History of Canadian Theatre (review)

Brian Kennedy's compilation of scenes taken from twenty-five different plays is a unique approach to relating theatre history. Each scene is accompanied by a brief contextual introduction and followed by what Kennedy calls 'Director's Notes' that make observations about diverse topics such as themes, staging, acting advice, or plot. The scenes are grouped into six historical periods: 'The Velvet Gloves of the Garrison' (from Lescarbot to Cameron and Telgmann's 1889 Leo, the Royal Cadet), 'The Baron Bold' (nineteenth-century English-Canadian plays), 'The Dominion Years' (from Denison's Brothers in Arms to Joudry's 1955 Teach Me How to Cry), 'A Revolution in Quebec' (four plays from Quebec: Tit-Coq to Bouchard's The Coronation Voyage), 'A Revolution in English Canada' (The Farm Show to h. jay bunyan's 1981 Prodigals in a Promised Land), and finally 'Web and Circle' (Native Canadian drama represented by The Hamatsa, Ryga's The Escstasy of Rita Joe, and Highway's Aria). Each section begins with a short introductory essay in which Kennedy outlines what he sees as the highlights of the period.

The focus on dramatic texts in such a history should be something to celebrate. And indeed, despite some choices which are predictable (The Farm Show and Leaving Home) and others that are rather inexplicable (Sheridan's School for Scandal, Dumas's Camille among them), Kennedy's work does introduce some interesting and lesser-known plays. For example, the play from which the book takes its title, Titus A. Drum's The Baron Bold and the Beauteous Maid, is a wonderful satirical parody. Likewise, it is refreshing to see excerpts of Eight Men Speak and Dubé's Zone, as both deserve to be better known.

However, I'm not convinced the use of excerpts in this way is entirely successful. The book seems aimed at high school teachers of drama, and the 'Director's Notes' address the needs of younger actors in particular. This is a crucial and much-neglected target audience for increasing awareness of Canadian drama and theatre history; however, I was not certain how this book would be used in the classroom. The excerpts could be used for in-class exercises, or perhaps performed for revue or festival situations, but they seem too short to be really meaningful in production (despite Kennedy's valiant work at providing plotlines and context). Perhaps the book is meant to intrigue teachers and students to seek out the full-length plays (Kennedy does provide full bibliographical information for each play) or perhaps other Canadian plays. If that is the case then more information about available anthologies of plays, publishers of Canadian plays, and other sources of contemporary information would have been useful.

It is the 'Director's Notes' and introductions to the periods and plays that are more problematic. Attempting to condense four-hundred years of history in between excerpted scenes is a recipe for over-generalization, such as the attempt to equate theatre-going for the entire Victorian era with modern tv viewing. It also means that many rather odd statements creep in: the terms 'Restoration' and 'eighteenth-century' drama get conflated in the introduction to School for Scandal, troubling advice to actors of melodrama to 'exaggerate with the worst assaults to the realistic style that they can muster'; and, even more disturbing, assessments of black writers like George Elliott Clarke as 'new Canadians.' Part of the many distortions result from the need for great brevity, but they also result from research that is limited to dated or general sources. The history Kennedy tells is not informed by any theorizing or research done after the mid-1990s, and most comes from secondary works written much earlier. High school students deserve more up-to-date and accurate information and thoughtful contextualization.

I applaud and encourage the attempt to bring Canadian theatre history and drama to a younger readership, but can only wish it were done with a...