Guthrie, the Stratford Festival and Canadian Theatre

*44/ 10 Guthrie, the Stratford Festival and Canadian Teatre Liza Gifen soon afer. His frst and most important task was to create a company: he located actors in Montreal, Toronto and Otawa with the help of Rupert Caplan, then a young thea- he Stratford Festival is today the tre professional just back from New York (and later one of pre-eminent repertory theatre com- CBC%s major radio-drama producers), but found that most pany in North America. Te quality of the professional stage actors he met were unsuitable for Tof its work, from the classics to musicals and radio work. Tis proved to be a signifcant discovery for new plays, is acknowledged around the world Guthrie. It may at frst seem unrelated to his later work at – and was from the start. Te Stratford Festi- Stratford, but it is in fact key to what would soon become val, from unlikely beginnings, became a touch a distinctive part of the Canadian festival. As he explained, paper for and a founding part of a new type of U.S. and British-trained stage actors of the time declaimed theatre, as well as a keystone of the Canadian – across the divide between actor and audience imposed by theatre ecology more generally. the proscenium stage; it was extremely difcult to ‘untrain% When Tyrone Guthrie visited Stratford in them and then guide them towards a new subtle, nuanced July 1952 at the behest of journalist Tom style of acting necessary for the radio or – as he also later Paterson, he was one of the most signifcant wished – on stage. It was simpler to take on talented ama- directors working in the international theatre. teurs, without preconceptions, and this Guthrie did, in efect His previous work ranged from early begin- running a radio-acting school in Montreal that created a very nings at the Oxford Playhouse, to experience diferent style of performer from those across the Atlantic. as broadcaster and producer at the BBC, to Guthrie is clear in his notes on his radio work of the time being a core director for the Scotish Natio- that the impressions of a radio play «are more intimate than nal Players, directing opera in New York and those of the stage», because both the writing and acting are plays at the Old Vic in London, England. But directed at an audience close to the radio receiver and not Guthrie, in fact, also knew Canada well, and at the audience of a typical contemporary theatre, who are his theatre work had been deeply infuenced distanced from the action by the proscenium arch and or- by his time there. chestra pit (Fink, 1981). Consequently, rather than his Bri- Guthrie%s frst visit was to produce and direct tish theatre infuences guiding his Canadian experiences, it the Romance of Canada documentary drama seems clear that his Canadian radio experiences deeply in- series for the CN Radio Department in 1931. fuenced his British theatre work and, ultimately, his frustra- In the depth of the Great Depression, the tion with British theatres and the style of acting that their company wanted to sell its Radio Department architecture imposed. (the only continent-wide Canadian radio Tis desire for a new intimacy between stage and house was network) to the federal government. As an en- only reinforced by his more well-known practical experien- couragement, the Director of the Radio De- ces with temporary thrust stages. A rain-disrupted al fesco partment, Austin Weir, came up with the idea performance of Hamlet at Elsinore in 1937 was not a pro- of a weekly series of new Canadian historical blem for him, but actually a major step forward in the de- plays, to be called the Romance of Canada and velopment of this thinking. Te storm led to an impromptu to be writen by Merrill Denison. Guthrie was and radical re-staging of the play that had found great suc- invited to take part and took over production cess on the Old Vic proscenium stage. Tat night, *44/ 11 [the audience] sat, densely packed, round three sides of a small As a result of our boom [wrote Paterson], clear space on the ballroom foor, on which most of the action pas- bread and buter come fairly easily (althou- sed, with the steps and litle stage for occasional scenes. Te efect gh expensive) and we, as a nation, are casting aimed at was [to have] the audience in the most informal and the closest possible contact with the actors. (Guthrie 1937: 246) around to fnd what it is we are missing. Guthrie realized then the fundamental principle of all his I think we have found it. When a ballet comes to Toronto, it is impossible to obtain seats afer about future thinking: «intimacy between the actors and the two days of ticket sales; the Metropolitan Opera players is the frst essential» (ibidem). Tis nascent thrust played to its largest crowd in its history last month stage concept was elaborated in his production of Ane Sa- in Toronto (an average of 11,500 per night); Mrs tyre of the Trie Estaitis in the Church of Scotland%s General Mavor Moore%s production of Spring Taw played to Assembly Hall at the second Edinburgh Festival in 1948: nearly 100,000 people in a fve-week run just con- Canadian and Festival Stratford the Guthrie, cluded (Tom Pat erson to Tyrone Guthrie 1952). Te Moderator%s chair and the table before it, in the centre of the hall, were enclosed under a platform atainable from each of three When Guthrie made the journey to southwe- sides by steps. Behind and above on the fourth side, a gallery was at- stern Ontario, he was rapidly convinced of tained by two fights of stairs. Te space under the gallery could be the fact that the social, logistical and econo- closed or exposed at will by drawing curtains. (Guthrie 1959: 309). mic infrastructure was in place to make a festival viable. He would write in 1954 Te desire to create a permanent thrust stage was not to be satisfed in the U.K., however: a post-war country in However carefully the Festival might have been or- the process of rebuilding its ruined cities and replaying its ganized, however brilliant the performances might wartime borrowings from its major ally, America, was not have been, it would have availed nothing if there had not been a public hungry and eager for the kind thinking frst and foremost of building new theatres in for- of fare that was ofered. (Guthrie 1954b: 53) ms untried for 400 years. Instead, it took him back to the country where his thinking on audience/actor connection In an essay on the start of the Festival that has was frst seeded: Canada. ofen been quoted, Guthrie wrote the noto- Guthrie was frst approached by Tom Paterson, of Stra- rious phrase, «Canada is a very dull place to tford, Ontario, in 1952 about founding a Canadian theatre live», which has sometimes been fung at the festival. Paterson was blunt about his own lack of knowle- director to denounce him as having a colonia- dge of the theatre and that of fellow Stratfordites. He wrote list agenda. In fact, this phrase was carefully in a leter to Guthrie, contextualized by Guthrie, who went on, to say that Canadian are equipped with money, as far as the actual production is concerned, I think I probably know as much about the theatre as anyone else [in Stratford] – leisure, and an awareness of ‘culture% for whi- which is nothing. (Tom Paterson to Tyrone Guthrie 1952) ch there is therefore a large demand, but still a very small supply and describes the coun- and it seems likely that it was this very innocence that at- try as “at the present moment, […] a ‘sellers% T market% for culture: the demand is greater tracted the director. As Paterson continued, as a group with eatre no preconceptions of how to stage plays professionally, than the supply” (Guthrie 1954b: 53). Tis combination of factors provided Guthrie with we are therefore are more than willing to give you a completely the right blank canvas – Stratford – on which free hand […]. Tere is absolutely nothing to start with so that to start his work. And what he proposed was whoever does produce the festival will have no traditions to over- extraordinary. come. […] we do sincerely want to ofer you the chance at a “fresh Te frst tent seating plan of 1953 give a sen- advance”. (Ibidem) se of the most important and revolutionary Moreover, Paterson did have enough awareness of the aspect of the stage: the changed relationship current situation to be convinced that, at this stage, there between audience and actors. His Edinburgh was enough of a public audience for the arts in Ontario to Festival experience had taught him: make such a festival worthwhile. One of the most pleasing efects of the performance was the physical relation of the audience to *44/ 12 the stage. Te audience did not look at the actors front area of the auditorium and entrances at the back and against a background of pictorial and illusory sce- sides of the stage created fuid, fast paterns of movement nery. Seated around three sides of the stage, they based on diagonals as actors entered, crossed and exited focused on the actors in the brightly lit acting area, but the background was of the dimly lit rows of pe- from multiple directions, as can be seen from the prompt ople similarly focused on the actors.

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