Foreword

Abstract

As we all know, the idea of theatre is undergoing significant revision: ideas of cultural performance, gender construction, ethnic, personal and national expression, postcolonial performance, and performativity (both cultural and linguistic) are joining more traditional definitions of the play text as sites of analysis. Just as historiography urges a contextual reading of the important documents of Canada's stage, poststructural criticisms urge study of theatrical performance in a plurality of contexts and from various (often previously ignored) perspectives. Studies of a particular play can approach the source material from many vantages, each imbricating the other to create a lattice of analysis which more fully reveals the play's meanings. And, by showing a variety of ways of seeing, such studies also deny the transcendence of any one means of investigation; indeed, they demonstrate that all readings are provisional and contingent upon the subject-position of the spectator.