Behind the scenes at a classical theater
While it's still fresh in my mind, I'll write about Backstage at Stratford by Joan Ganong (Toronto, Longmans [1962]). This will eventually end up on some list about the Stratford (Ontario, Canada) Shakespeare Festival, or theater books in general. But I read it on vacation last month.
Ganong worked in the publicity department of the Stratford Festival for two years in the early 1960s. She wrote in-depth about its 9th (I believe) season, so the Festival was still relatively new.
The book was very slow to get going...discouraging, because I'd been looking forward to reading it. But that's in part because the festival season was slow to get going; the director (Michael Langham) of two of the plays was late in arriving. Plus, everyone was waiting (with huge anticipation, to believe the author) for the arrival of Paul Scofield, who was to play the lead in Coriolanus, as well as have a role in Love's Labours Lost. (The other mainstage play performed that year was Henry VIII.) This wait was marked by the author with gushing prose, a problem throughout the book. I don't recall seeing either Scofield's or Langham's work; they may have well been worth all the praise she heaps on them. But the style overall got irritating. It wasn't just these two she praised to high heavens: it was nearly every person involved in the season. I kept wishing for one of the characters to lose their temper, or just do something less than saintly. The writing style was pretty flowery and almost quaint, which didn't help matters.
But the book did pick up, and I'm glad I stuck with it, despite its flaws. Ganong covers nearly every creative aspect of the season, covering not only rehearsals but the design and creation of the set, costumes, props, music, lighting. Okay, when she went into great detail about all the lighting cues, it got a little long. But it did demonstrate how much goes into "putting on a show." And I did like reading about what has to be considered in putting together costumes, and the tricks used in constructing props. I really got a sense of the rehearsal process, and what goes in to theatrical dueling. Oh, and there's a whole chapter about doing the publicity photos! But it was interesting!
I've read First Stage: the making of the Stratford Festival (Toronto : McClelland and Stewart, c1987.), festival founder Tom Patterson's account of the festival's founding, and Stratford Gold: Fifty Years, Fifty Stars, Fifty Conversations (Toronto : McArthur & Co., 2002) by Richard Ouzounian, interviews with 50 actors who've starred in Stratford productions. What Backstage at Stratford offers, aside from the backstage detail, is a glimpse of a theater that's become a national institution, BEFORE it was a national institution. It doesn't place it in a context of Canadian or classical theater; it's about the people doing the work in that season. And it's definitely about doing the work, not about gossip or hanging out in Stratford, Ontario (which may be a pretty quiet activity, for all I know).
While it's still fresh in my mind, I'll write about Backstage at Stratford by Joan Ganong (Toronto, Longmans [1962]). This will eventually end up on some list about the Stratford (Ontario, Canada) Shakespeare Festival, or theater books in general. But I read it on vacation last month.
Ganong worked in the publicity department of the Stratford Festival for two years in the early 1960s. She wrote in-depth about its 9th (I believe) season, so the Festival was still relatively new.
The book was very slow to get going...discouraging, because I'd been looking forward to reading it. But that's in part because the festival season was slow to get going; the director (Michael Langham) of two of the plays was late in arriving. Plus, everyone was waiting (with huge anticipation, to believe the author) for the arrival of Paul Scofield, who was to play the lead in Coriolanus, as well as have a role in Love's Labours Lost. (The other mainstage play performed that year was Henry VIII.) This wait was marked by the author with gushing prose, a problem throughout the book. I don't recall seeing either Scofield's or Langham's work; they may have well been worth all the praise she heaps on them. But the style overall got irritating. It wasn't just these two she praised to high heavens: it was nearly every person involved in the season. I kept wishing for one of the characters to lose their temper, or just do something less than saintly. The writing style was pretty flowery and almost quaint, which didn't help matters.
But the book did pick up, and I'm glad I stuck with it, despite its flaws. Ganong covers nearly every creative aspect of the season, covering not only rehearsals but the design and creation of the set, costumes, props, music, lighting. Okay, when she went into great detail about all the lighting cues, it got a little long. But it did demonstrate how much goes into "putting on a show." And I did like reading about what has to be considered in putting together costumes, and the tricks used in constructing props. I really got a sense of the rehearsal process, and what goes in to theatrical dueling. Oh, and there's a whole chapter about doing the publicity photos! But it was interesting!
I've read First Stage: the making of the Stratford Festival (Toronto : McClelland and Stewart, c1987.), festival founder Tom Patterson's account of the festival's founding, and Stratford Gold: Fifty Years, Fifty Stars, Fifty Conversations (Toronto : McArthur & Co., 2002) by Richard Ouzounian, interviews with 50 actors who've starred in Stratford productions. What Backstage at Stratford offers, aside from the backstage detail, is a glimpse of a theater that's become a national institution, BEFORE it was a national institution. It doesn't place it in a context of Canadian or classical theater; it's about the people doing the work in that season. And it's definitely about doing the work, not about gossip or hanging out in Stratford, Ontario (which may be a pretty quiet activity, for all I know).
posted by Beth at 2:19 PM
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