Shakespeare in St John’s

• Published in: Canadian Theatre Review
• Main Author: Ayres, Peter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 1988
• Subjects: Visual Arts and Performing Arts; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/ctr.54.007; https://ctr.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/ctr.54.007

Shakespeare, like everything else, is different in Newfoundland. Most notably Shakespeare is important in a way that he seldom seems to be elsewhere. People like Shakespeare, produce Shakespeare, and go to Shakespeare, not because plays are presented under the sanctified auspices of a mass-audience Shakespearean festival in a place inevitably called Stratford, or because they are being done in fringe productions by terribly exciting experimental directors, but because they are good entertainment, good theatre, and good box-office. Within the last twelve months in St John’s, there have been four significant Shakespearean productions, all of them reasonably successful in attracting the audiences, and sustaining the enthusiasm, that support and have supported a number of different traditions of Shakespearean production in St John’s over a considerable period of time. Interesting as productions in their own right, and as approaches to the larger issues of Shakespearean production, they also provide a microcosm of the larger world of theatre in St John’s.