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A Classical Gas: Ontario's Stratford Festival at Fifty
| Article
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21726 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 2002 |
2,052 Words |
| Author
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Michael W. Higgins
Michael W. Higgins is president of St. Jerome's University in
Waterloo, Ontario, a biographer, scholar, and CBC
documentarist. |
When the Jesuit-educated Montrealer Richard Monette, artistic director of the Stratford Festival in Ontario, announced the much-anticipated roster of productions scheduled for the 2002 season, he observed that it will be a "celebration of how artists heal through laughter, tears, and beauty." Speaking in the very shadow of the September 11 massacres, he was addressing the urgent need felt by so many artists to find some meaningful way of responding to the forces of unreason set upon the world. After all, like so many artistic directors before him, Monette is an actor (although he has long since retired from the stage), an artist who appreciates the desperate human urge to celebrate and heal.
But he is also the current artistic director of a world-famous festival of the arts and Canada's largest performing arts company. He is responsible not only for entertaining discerning subscribers but for seeing to it that William Shakespeare's Ontario home is fiscally solvent, intelligently administered, and responsive to the needs of townsfolk who depend on it for their livelihoods. In short, like a baron in medieval times, Monette shoulders duties that far exceed pure artistic decision making; he has a fiefdom to secure against want and must provide regular fare that inspires confidence in his leadership.
As he surveys his holdings, Monette must be proud, indeed. Things have not looked quite so good for a long time. Prosperity, although recently threatened by the social and financial consequences of September 11, still holds sway, and the future has the feel of Camelot about it. There are some clouds on the horizon, naturally, for what is a drama festival without a handsome dollop of tension, but Monette's grip on power is secure to 2004, and
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