Views & Reviews

Abstract

In this issue devoted to an examination ofthe int ersection oftheatre and disability culture, I have chosen to revive a Canadian Theatre Reviewtradition and give myself carte blanche with the Views ’ Reviews section, in order to offer overdue coverage ofsome ofthe noteworthy texts I have received lately. I begin with this idea from Lukacs because of his unique vision of the role of the avant-garde artist in society and because his way of identifying the avantgarde so often reminds me of the process of reviewing and/or editing the reviews for this publication. For Lukacs, the avant-garde was profoundly realist; that is, for an artist to be considered avant-garde, she or he had to be not only prophetic but accurately prophetic, anticipatory even. An avant-garde work, then, can never be identified as such until enough time has passed to allow for the work of critics, reviewers and editors in the process of verifying the work’s propositions. Given the passage of time in this process, an artist can only ever “have beenreviews-article avant-garde. I think th is accurately describes the reviewing in this section ofthe Canadian Theatre Review,especially with regard to written material. Publishers kindly send me some truly remarkable texts, and I do my best to see that they get into the hands of capable reviewers, but this process takes time, and one is reminded of continually arriving late to the discovery of an important new vision.