Sharon Pollock: Essays on Her Works

Carol A. Stos is an assistant professor of Spanish Studies at Laurentian
University.

The first volume in Guernica’s Writers Series, this collection of
eight essays includes an interview with the playwright by the editor,
Anne Nothof (who also contributed an essay) and a biography and
bibliography of Pollock’s works and criticism of her writing.
Nothof’s brief introduction notes Pollock’s multifaceted
perspectives and approaches to her subject matter, emphasizing that her
work, like its author, resists categorization. Nevertheless, the essays
included here attempt to trace Pollock’s development from the early
“history” plays to the more recent “feminist” plays.

The essays range from overviews of Pollock’s earliest works to more
detailed studies of a particular aspect in certain plays or a single
drama. The unavoidable repetition of plot explanation becomes a little
wearing, but the differences in the critical perception of the same
elements in a play is testimony to the richness of Pollock’s writing.
Just as interesting as the evolution of Pollock’s work is the sense of
a corresponding development in the depth and scope of the criticism
inspired by her plays.

One wishes that the authors of the six previously published pieces had
revisited their original essays and commented on them at even greater
length than Malcolm Page does in the note at the end of his (annoyingly,
two almost identical versions of this note appear). Some confusion would
be avoided had Nothof indicated more clearly in her introduction, or at
the beginning of each essay, when and where the essay had been
previously published; the acknowledgements page is too easily skipped
over.

Caveats aside, this useful and long-overdue introduction to Sharon
Pollock’s work should help to pave the way for future studies of a
distinctive dramatic voice in Canada.