(The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre)
By Mel Atkey
Natural Heritage Books
311 pages, $29.95
ISBN 1-897045-08-5

   As Mel Atkey acknowledges in his “Overture,” the phrase “Canadian musical theatre” is an oxymoron. A nation that has traditionally taken pride in its hewers of wood and drawers of water, and one where there are national parades for professional sportsmen but never for artists, is not generally regarded as a major contributor to the pantheon of great musicals. Atkey recalls that Canadian humorist Eric Nicol once joked that a Canadian musical was “built around one girl who can play the harmonica while tap-dancing.” Only a true aficionado of theatre could name five or six outstanding Canadian musicals with the same speed it would take to rattle off the names of five or six Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals or Sondheim sensations or Lloyd Webber mega-hits. When Atkey informed colleagues in the U.K. that he was writing a book on Canadian musical theatre, they wondered waggishly if it would be a companion piece to Two Thousand Years of German Humour.

   Why is this so? Though many theatergoers assume that the musical is a distinctly American invention, the plain fact is that the modern American musical is (in Atkey’s words) “a cocktail of European operetta, Klezmer, vaudeville, minstrel show and African rhythms with an infusion of opera and ballet.” Until the 1920s, American musicals were “mostly imitations of the British and Austrian forms.” Of course, the great American composers and librettists carried the genre farther than counterparts in other nations did. However, what case can be made for Canada? Is there a substantial body of Canadian musicals or is our national reputation to rest on one-shot wonders—a Billy Bishop Goes To War or The House of Martin Guerre or The Drowsy Chaperone (really a small comic fantasy expansively embellished and polished by Broadway to its present incarnation)? Is there a Canadian composer with a growing body of distinguished musicals, or can we point only to the late lamented and prolific Mavor Moore who wanted to put Canada on stage or to the accomplished but limited Marek Norman or the ambitious but idioscyncratic R. Murray Shafer? Atkey’s quick survey of Canadian theatre history shows that “until the early 1950s, Canada’s exposure to musical theatre came through movies, touring productions, amateur theatre and companies like Theatre Under the Stars (Vancouver), Rainbow Stage (Winnipeg) and Melody Fair (Toronto) that presented summer seasons of Broadway shows.” Our regional and leading repertory theatres neglected the form (which Atkey defines for this book as “a presentation in which the musical and dramatic elements bear equal weight”). The Crest tried Evelyn (starring Tom Kneebone) in 1964, but filled only 19% of its small house. The Tarragon’s record on the matter is not much better, though it can boast of a musical noire in Little Mercy’s First Murder. Rainbow Stage’s only Canadian musical has been Anne of Green Gables; the Shaw Festival has never produced a Canadian musical, while Stratford had to turn to Gilbert and Sullivan for a cash cow. When John Hirsch wrote and directed his Satyricon in 1969, there was no discernible book but a lot of nudity, sexual suggestiveness, and songs that didn’t seem well related to the book, and the Festival’s first fully Canadian musical (Richard Ouzounian’s Dracula) was only done in 1999! CanStage has tried to break the pattern with productions of Larry’s Party, Pelagie, and Outrageous! but the results have been wildly uneven.

   Yet, there is no dearth of musical talent in this country. Christopher Plummer, Brent Carver, Bob Martin, and Des McAnuff have won Tony Awards for acting, writing, or directing in a musical, and singers such as Mary-Ann Mcdonald and Louise Pitre could well embellish a Broadway cast—as Ms. Pitre, indeed, did with her knockout performance in Mama Mia! One of the best Tevyes I have ever seen was Sam Moses’ in (of all venues) Stage West, Mississauga, and the best Tony in West Side Story that I can recall was Tyley Ross’ at the Stratford Festival. Atkey’s book doesn’t always hit these points, but it has real value—not only for its brief for such a thing as the Canadian musical (though I would argue against his confidence), but for its most useful research and naming of obscure, hidden, or forgotten Canadian talents—such as the Dumbells (an irreverent vaudeville troupe from the 1920s), Anna Russell (the great comedienne), dancers Blanche Harris and Alan Lund, Ann Mortifee, composer/conductor David Warrack, composer Ray Jessel, et cetera. Then there are the more recent celebrities whose significant talents and contributions are also becoming less and less known to new generations: the late Norman Campbell, Dinah Christie, Cliff Jones, Brian Macdonald, Joey Miller, and others. As a condensed history, the book exposes some very interesting details: for instance, that the idea behind the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes was first tried out in Toronto, or that Canada produced the world’s longest-running annual revue (Spring Thaw), or that Anne of Green Gables has played more performances at the Charlottetown Festival than South Pacific did in its original Broadway production. However, the book chapters almost invariably lack a sense of continuity or progression, being independent histories of specific regions or regional developments without a real connection to an overarching pattern. The very fact that there is no overarching pattern is instructive: can we really speak with any meaning of the Canadian musical if there is no continuing or consolidated tradition? The publisher has seen a need to stamp a silhouette of the Maple Leaf on alternate pages, though I am not sure why. Is this meant to remind the reader that the author and publisher are Canadian, or that the subject is being developed as an investigation of an indigenous form? Or is it an unnecessary form of national chauvinism? Whatever the motive, the maple leaf does get in the way of easy reading, its silhouette falling heavily over the printed text.

   Overall, however, the production quality is good because of the photographs, programs, and illustrations culled from several archives, though there are glaring errors. For instance, I am certain that Ginger Rodgers mentioned in the book was really meant to be Ginger Rogers; that Jan Rubes is the one meant by Jan Rube; that the opera is really Cosi Fan Tutte and not Cossi Fan Tutte; the performer called Garaint Wyn Davies is really Geraint Wyn Davies; and that Dickens’ Cratchits are neither Crachets or Cratchets—as Atkey has it. Atkey ultimately transcends these mistakes and a dull or pedestrian writing style, by his tendentious approach to his subject. He is far more interesting when he is polemical or didactic than when he is merely descriptive, and a true lover of musicals will probably enjoy having a mental debate with Atkey on many things—from the emotional depth in satire to the reasons why the exigencies and realities of our country force us to think small. To his credit, Atkey doesn’t gild the lily: he quotes many an unfavorable comment on a Canadian musical, but he also shows in the process how far off the mark our professional critics have often been in their evaluations and verdicts. Anyone (and I shall protect the guilty by keeping them anonymous) who can call Mavor Moore’s Johnny Belinda an “Oklahoma! without benefit of memorable songs” or who can label Jane Eyre “a happy show in the Charlottetown tradition” should be gagged and bound—not for Broadway but for a very low circle in Dante’s inferno. Atkey’s book (long in the making) is an important service in the cause of the Canadian musical—a form that has yet to see its maturity, let alone its golden age.   

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