The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

dance with her imaginary lover and later
offers imprisonment in her immobile body
as the image of a punishment, a living Hell,
for Christine, the reporter who has
betrayed her confidence. When Rodney
remembers a childhood betrayal by his
school friend Michael, he envisions a present
encounter where he takes a knife and
cuts Michael's throat.
Thompson's theatre challenges the notion
of a unitary fixed self, showing individual
identities under attacked, changing, and
being constructed. We watch Sue changing,
chameleon-like, enacting a seductive strip
tease, adapting herself in an attempt to
regain the desire of her adulterous husband.
In a harrowing scene, a young
woman collapses under her fiance's verbal
abuse in which he totally rewrites the circumstances
of her past rape and forces her
to agree that it was an event which she had
desired and initiated. It is a painful demonstration
of the emotional mechanics of
patriarchal social forces and violence
against women.
What I find troubling in this brilliant play
is its quasi-religious ending. The ghost of
Isobel confronts her male killer and forgives
him with the words "I love you." In
this moment of what Thompson has elsewhere
called "grace," Isobel achieves spiritual
enlightenment and transcendence.
Isobel then tells the audience, "I come
back. I take my life. I want you all to take
your life. I want you all to have your life."
What was a complex play concerned with a
community, with showing the patriarchal
construction of identity, and with the
plight of individuals faced with a variety of
social problems, reverts to the affirmation
of an autonomous self and to individual
forgiveness and grace, solutions which
seem pitifully inadequate in the play world
of Lion in the Streets.
Despite its weak ending, Lion in the Streets
is a challenging play for both its performers
and audience. I am sure Thompson's emotional
dissection of contemporary life and
her dazzling language and theatricality will
leave enduring impressions in the minds
and senses of her audiences.
In a totally different vein yet making an
equally significant contribution to Canadian
theatre is Heather McCallum and Ruth
Pincoe's Directory of Canadian Theatre
Archives published in the Occasional Papers
series of the School of Library and
Information Studies, Dalhousie University.
This volume focuses on non-book and
visual materials and is an update of the 1973
publication, Theatre Resources in Canadian
Collections. McCallum's informative introduction
identifies "scholars, educators,
researchers, archivists, librarians, theatre
personnel, and the general public" as the
intended readers of this reference work. She
clearly describes the parameters of the project,
the editorial choices, and the procedure
by which the data was collected.
Directory entries are arranged geographically,
from east to west, the only omission
being the Northwest Territories. The
entries are further arranged alphabetically
by city or town, followed by institution or
theatre. Special collections at each location
are also listed. Each entry helpfully contains
the address, phone number, fax number,
and establishment date of the
collecting organization, and a brief description
of its holdings based on information
supplied by the staff of the institutions.
The directory includes a variety of
archival sources ranging from government
archives; national and public libraries; university
archives and drama departments;
theatre companies; schools and associations;
museums; and private collections. It
describes a wealth of fascinating information
for theatre research such as administrative
and financial records, prompt
scripts, programs, posters, press clippings,
correspondences, visual and audio records,
play manuscripts, architectural plans, production
designs, and much more. There is