Kym Bird: Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women's Drama, 1880-1920

KYM BIRD Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women's Drama, 1880-1920 Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2004. xii + 269 pp. SHELLEY SCOTT Nightwood Theatre: A Woman's Work is Always Done. Edmonton: AU Press, 2010. 344 pp. Despite differences in time periods, Kym Bird's Redressing the Past: The Politics of Early English-Canadian Women's Drama, 1880-1920 and Shelley Scott's Nightwood Theatre: A Woman's Work is Always Done share certain commonalities: both originated as PhD dissertations, both examine contributions of women to Canadian theatre, and both interweave political, gender, and aesthetic concerns. Moreover, both books situate themselves as feminist projects of recovery: Bird's work is described as "a preliminary attempt to fill the historical gap" (4); while Scott's stated desire is to recognize and "preserve" contributions, thereby arresting further loss (224). Both texts achieve their recuperative goals and, by adding to our body of knowledge, effectively engender a more complete and diverse picture of Canada's theatrical past. Redressing the Past focuses on "a small but significant body of texts" written by Canadian women between 1880 and 1920 in response to the "woman movement," the first wave of sustained feminist political activity (4). Included in the analysis are the closet dramas of Sarah Anne Curzon, the mock parliaments of the suffragists, the plays of Kate Simpson Hayes, and the comedies of Clara Rothwell Anderson--a sampler of the dominant genres chosen by women at the time. Bird identifies common traits in the work, such as didactic purpose, the construction of new roles for women, and an often contradictory ideological tension between the liberal (or equality) and maternal (or domestic) feminist strains of the day. Bird posits "a continuous dialectical relation" between "the struggle for political and social advancement in terms of both liberal and domestic feminism, and/or a reactionary position supporting the status quo and an ideology of separate spheres" (13). Bird aptly illustrates this duality with each subject and, given her chronological arrangement of material, further demonstrates the overarching trajectory of the Canadian feminist movement in this period. Drawing on a materialist feminist approach, Bird analyzes conditions and texts, expertly exploring the "relationship between biography, politics, and genre" to uncover influences and intersections that contributed to the formulation of the work at hand (4). The first chapter critiques Curzon's Laura Secord and The Sweet Girl Graduate in relation to Canadian nationalism, political activism, and generic configuration, revealing a liberal feminist philosophy with some contradictory maternal feminist underpinnings. Chapter Two imaginatively re-constructs a mock parliament--a collectively-devised satirical parody of role reversal in which disenfranchised men appeal to a government of women for the right to vote. Bird identifies a political discrepancy in the form, given "a reverence for the democratic process" on the one hand, and a concurrent condemnation of the system due to gender bias on the other (91). Chapter Three focuses on Kate Simpson Hayes, whose personal life and early dramatic work (no longer extant) suggest a liberal feminist politic, while her later plays (Slumberland Shadows and The Anvil) demonstrate a full conversion to domestic feminism and the doctrine of Social Purity. The fourth chapter examines the feminist comedies of Clara Rothwell Anderson, a minister's wife who achieved church support and literary acclaim reinforcing maternal and Social Gospel precepts while simultaneously expanding women's roles and the delimitations of drama. With the above case studies, Bird adroitly examines the tensions and contradictions of the woman movement, bringing to light heretofore neglected plays and playwrights, and thus confirms the existence of an "early feminist dramatic tradition in Canada" (15). …