Shakespeare in Canada: A World Elsewhere?

Is there a distinctly Canadian Shakespeare? What is the status and function of Shakespeare in various locations within the nation: at Stratford, on CBC radio, in regional and university theatres, in Canadian drama and popular culture? Shakespeare in Canada brings insights from a little explored but extensive archive to contemporary debates about the cultural uses of Shakespeare and what it means to be Canadian. Canada's long history of Shakespeare productions and reception, including adaptations, literary reworkings, and parodies, is analysed and contextualized within the four sections of the book. A timely addition to the growing field that studies the transnational reach of Shakespeare across cultures, this collection examines the political and cultural agendas invoked not only by Shakespeare's plays, but also by his very name. In part a historical and regional survey of Shakespeare in performance, adaptation, and criticism, this is the first work to engage Shakespeare with distinctly Canadian debates addressing nationalism, separatism, cultural appropriation, cultural nationalism, feminism, and postcolonialism.

Table of Contents:
Preface – Diane Bryden and Irena R. Makaryk Introduction: Shakespeare in Canada: 'aworld elsewhere'? – Irena R. Makaryk Part One: Beginnings: Institutionalizing Shakespeare Pioneer Shakespeare Culture: The Reverend Henry Scadding and His Shakespeare Display at the 1892 Toronto Industrial Exhibition – Heather Murray The Imperial Theme: The Shakespeare Society of Toronto,1928-1969 – Karen Bamford 'A Stage for the Word': Shakespeare on CBC Radio, 1947-1955 – Marta Straznicky Stratford and the Aspirations for a Canadian National Theatre – Margaret Groome Shakespeare Canadiens at the Stratford Festival – C.E. McGee A National Hamlet?: Stratford's Legacy of Twentieth-Century Productions – Jessica Schagerl Part Two: Shakespeare On Stage 'Le Re-making' of le Grand Will: Shakespeare in Francophone Quebec – Leanore Lieblein Learning to Curse in Accurate Iambics: Shakespeare in Newfoundland – Peter Ayers Liberal Spectators and Illiberal Critiques: Necessary Angel's King Lear – Michael McKinnie Part Three: Critical Debates and Traditions Continuity and Contradiction: University Actors Meet the Universal Bard – Anthony B. Dawson Canadian Bacon – Paul Yachnin and Brent E. Whitted Canada, Negative Capability, and Cymbeline – Alexander Leggatt Frye's Shakespeare, Frye's Canada – L.M. Findlay Part Four: Reimagining Shakespeare Nation and/as Adaptation: Shakespeare, Canada, and Authenticity – Daniel Fischlin Undead and Unsafe: Adapting Shakespeare (in Canada) – Mark Fortier Normand Chaurette's Les Reines: Shakespeare and the Modern in the Alchemical Oven – Lois Sherlow Othello in Three Times – Ric Knowles Afterword: Relocating Shakespeare, Redefining Canada – Diana Brydon