Shakespeare at Stratford, Ontario

Summary

The first Shakespearian Festival at Stratford, Ontario, is worth attention from two points of view: first as an enterprise, a feat of courage, faith and vision by the community of this little Ontario city; secondly because, so far as I know, this is the first time for many years that a stage and auditorium have been specially constructed for the presentation of Shakespearian plays.

Stratford is a town of 19,000 inhabitants, it is a railway junction, the site of a railway engine repair works, there are some furniture factories; but it is principally a market town for a very prosperous agricultural country-side, old-established by Canadian standards. It was settled over 100 years ago. The present population is some three or four generations removed from the Pioneers, who were mostly Scottish and German, although the actual township was named by a group who came from Stratford, Warwickshire, and a little willow-edged creek flowing nearby is spelt Avon, though pronounced Awon. This creek has been dammed up to form a series of lakes and islands—very pretty, and the one feature which distinguishes Stratford visually from any one of many similar little towns in Ontario.

The idea of the Festival was conceived by a young journalist called Tom Patterson. On war service in Italy he had encountered grand opera for the first time and been bowled over. Then, still as a soldier, in London he saw Ins first professional productions of 'straight' plays. Then he went to the Old Vic. The result was to make him feel that the entertainment hitherto available in Stratford, Ontario, was rather insufficient. He set to work to mobilize local interest in a Shakespearian Festival and after three years had raised a considerable head of steam.