A Stratford Tempest

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright and librettist and author of the
children’s books Magic and What’s in a Name?

When English-born Robin Phillips decided he no longer wanted to be artistic director of the Stratford Festival after 1980, the Board of Governors brought in another Englishman, Peter Stevens, as executive director and appointed an artistic directorate of four Canadian theatre people. A few weeks after his arrival, Peter Stevens told the Board that the projected 1981 program would lose over a million dollars. The Board believed him, fired the directorate of four, and attempted to hire yet another English artistic director, John Dexter.

In the resulting furor, many saw the Board’s behaviour as a slap in the face to Canadian talent; others saw the expressed outrage as a depressing slide into chauvinism. The upshot was the hiring of John Hirsch, who had come to Canada as a child. The 1981 season was saved; the audiences came; the Festival lost over a million dollars.

Martin Knelman’s talents as a reviewer of theatre and film seem to be sadly wasted on this theatrical squabble. The book is a careful and coherent account of the facts, offering no worthwhile conclusions. It will certainly make a splendid addition to Stratford’s archives, detailing as it does the ancestry of leading figures, verbatim reports of manifestoes and memoranda and such deathless quotes from high sources as, “He can stuff it.” For the general reader, Mr. Knelman’s expertise might have been put to better use in an assessment of the artistic development of the Festival.