James Reaney’s plays occupy a unique place in the Canadian dramatic
canon. Starting out with poetic fantasies in the early 1960s, Reaney
formed a group called the “Listeners’ Workshop” to develop images and plots
which he would later use in the writing of his plays. His experiments
with form and structure, melodrama and poetry, attracted the attention
of the Stratford Festival, which performed his play, Colours in the Dark,
in 1967, as part of the Centennial Celebrations. His trilogy, The
Donnellys, was hailed as a masterpiece when it was first performed, prompting
Urjo Kareda to write: “The whole cycle is not just beautiful, but dangerously
exciting.” One would imagine that Reaney’s work would be revived constantly,
and yet, his plays have been all but completely absent from the professional
stage for the past twenty years. Why is this so? What is it
about his work that keeps it from being performed? This paper will
attempt to answer this question by examining the plays and original performances,
critical reactions at the time, and how Reaney is viewed by theatrical
practitioners today.
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