Trickster Shakespeare? Canada and the Bard

Abstract

The Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia places Shakespeare’s ‘works . . . at the foundation of theatre in this country’, noting that the plays are ‘performed in all styles at virtually all the major theatres, in French and in English, across the nation’. This article surveys some of this Shakespearean activity, noting that Shakespeare is central and significant both to the more commercial and conservative Canadian theatrical institutions (especially the Stratford Festival of Canada) and to the most radical, decolonizing and critical theatre practices within the First Nations, English Canada and Quebec. Shakespearean adaptation is an important cultural phenomenon, and the subject of a major research initiative, the Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project (CASP), at the University of Guelph. ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Canada’ are in dynamic relation; as CASP Director, Daniel Fischlin, puts it, Shakespeare is one of the sites around which the ‘we’ (that thinks itself Canadian) engages in the struggle to authenticate and transform the dialogues and interpretations that make us who ‘we’ are.