“The most exciting night in the history of the Canadian theatre,” proclaimed Globe and Mail drama critic Herbert Whittaker.
“A genuine contribution to Shakespeare in North America,” wrote Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times.
“The most memorable single experience I ever had in the theatre,” recalled Canadian theatre critic Nathan Cohen more than a decade later.
The evening the three were talking about? July 13, 1953, the opening night of the Stratford Festival. It marked the culmination of a project that had gone from a pitch to city council to reality in just over a year — and then changed the face of Canadian theatre.
By the early 1950s, Stratford was in a state of transition. The future of its main industry, steam-engine repair, looked doubtful, as trains were switching to diesel fuel. While attempts to diversify its industrial base would prove successful, it was drama that would introduce the city of 19,000 to an international audience.
Photo from the July 16, 1953, edition of the Stratford Beacon-Herald.
Journalist Tom Patterson had long dreamed of being able to see Shakespeare productions in his hometown. (Canada was already home to a number of small-scale Shakespearian festivals, including one, started by actor Earle Grey, that had been mounted in Toronto since 1949.) In January 1952, Patterson pitched a festival to city council, which gave him $125 to go to New York to talk to Laurence Olivier. Unfortunately, the actor’s intense schedule meant that the two weren’t able to meet, but Patterson soon developed a network of contacts in the Canadian theatre world. By the summer, acclaimed British director Tyrone Guthrie had agreed to oversee the festival’s productions.
Some festival officials later said the short preparation period was likely helpful, as it left little time for complications to develop. And Patterson believed the festival committee’s lack of theatrical experience ended up being a plus. “Had we known beforehand we probably would have thrown up hands in holy terror,” he later noted. “We just went ahead and did it.” Others felt it was a case of the right festival at the right time: launched in the wake of the Massey Report, it both reflected and encouraged a growing sense of what the arts could accomplish in Canada.
Photo of an actor preparing for Richard III, from the July 13, 1953, edition of the Stratford Beacon-Herald.
Guthrie believed a large tent would be the best option for the festival’s launch. Open-air performances would be subject to unpredictable distractions, and no existing venues were suitable; building a permanent theatre could be considered if the festival proved a success. (The Festival Theatre would open in 1957.)
He also felt that, apart from a few actors and staff imported from elsewhere, “the project must be demonstrably a Canadian one, carried out not merely by Canadian initiative, and with Canadian finance, but by Canadian actors.” Auditions, which began in late 1952, brought in up-and-coming domestic talent such as Lloyd Bochner, Dawn Greenhalgh, Don Harron, William Hutt, William Needles, and Douglas Rain. For star power, the festival secured Alec Guinness (whose recent movie hits included The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit) and American-born/British-based actress Irene Worth.
Hamlet and Julius Caesar were considered for the opening bill. Guinness, then 39, felt he was too old to play the melancholy Dane, and a big-screen version of the Roman tragedy starring Marlon Brando was in the works. The Stratford Beacon-Herald was not pleased with the choice of RichardIII; it objected to the unwholesome title character, whom it described as “a physically repulsive hypocrite, liar, and murderer, without one redeeming feature.” The paper also said the choice was “a hideous blot on royalty” during a coronation year. “Wholesomeness is not a Shakespearian characteristic,” responded Peterborough Examiner editor Robertson Davies, who proceeded to reference unsavoury leads in the other historical plays. (“That old reprobate Falstaff,” he wrote, would “never have got a job on the Beacon-Herald.”) Davies concluded that, despite “the murder which the Beacon-Herald is trying to commit upon the infant body of its local festival,” the paper’s “dagger is too dull.”
Illustrations by Grant Macdonald originally published in the book "Renown at Stratford," by Tyrone Guthrie and Robertson Davies.
All’s Well That Ends Well was an interesting choice. It was rarely performed, and many said that Stratford would be the play’s North American professional debut. The production would be presented in modernish dress. Guthrie wanted an intimate comedy to contrast with the spectacle of Richard III, and he felt it had more humanity and poetry than was usually attributed to it.
Among the most excited to see the festival begin was Whittaker. Two days before it opened, he predicted that it would be “the first great festival in this country, the first of a series by which the national culture may be shaped and explained to match our more materialistic development.” Post-Stratford, he said, “we can never sink back, unknowing, into the kind of theatre we have suffered through these pioneer years, trapped into mediocrity by low budgets, exploiting its actors, audiences, and even managements.”
Illustrations by Grant Macdonald originally published in the book "Renown at Stratford," by Tyrone Guthrie and Robertson Davies.
As opening night neared, there were signs the city had mixed feelings about the festival. Pennants on the main streets had originally been hung for coronation celebrations; a giant welcome sign on city hall was a leftover from “Old Home Week” festivities. After Brooklyn Eagle drama critic Louis Sheaffer arrived in Stratford, locals told him that the city was a conservative one and that Shakespeare was too high-brow for its hockey-obsessed residents. New York World-Telegram and Sun critic William Hawkins worried that “Stratford does not seem yet to know what a distinguished and brilliant theatrical event it has in its handsome new tent on a hill.”
For those who embraced the festival, there was plenty of last-minute arranging and preparing to do. As the city boasted only two hotels, people compiled a list of homes offering rooms, creating space for up to 1,200 visitors. For groups of 30 or more, CN offered a special sleeper-car service on its passenger trains, which would sit on a siding overnight. Special airplane service was provided between New York and nearby London. Knox Presbyterian Church and the YMCA volunteered to prepare and serve meals. Canadian National Telegraph scheduled round-the-clock staffing in anticipation of a high volume of telegrams and wired stories. Girl Guides were assigned to direct traffic into parking lots. One thing visitors wouldn’t enjoy was a legal drink, as Stratford was dry and remained so for the rest of the decade.
Photo of longtime Saturday Night editor B.K. Sandwell and New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson from the July 14, 1953 edition of the Stratford Beacon-Herald.
On July 12, the festival company and more than 1,000 locals attended a dedication service. “This theatre is here because of the vision, determination, love, and hope of some people for the betterment of the life of this community and of the English-speaking world,” observed Knox Presbyterian Church minister Donald Mackay. That day, Patterson took Atkinson, the most powerful drama critic in North America, for a drive around Stratford. When asked whether he wanted a look at the tent, Atkinson replied, “I’m sorry, but a theatre is not a theatre until there’s a play in it. I’ll see it for the first time tomorrow night”
July 13 had the air of a Hollywood premiere. Critics and dignitaries were dropped off in the tent’s foyer. Among the attendees were Davies, Lady Eaton, Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Ernest Macmillan, Maclean-Hunter president Floyd Chalmers, and Canadian theatre luminaries Dora Mavor Moore and her son, Mavor. At 8 p.m., church bells rang, factory whistles sounded, and then the festival orchestra played composer Louis Applebaum’s fanfare. After “God Save the Queen,” Guinness took the stage and began describing his winter of discontent. During his opening speech as Richard III, Guinness repeatedly stabbed the balcony with his dagger, leaving marks that remained until the stage was remodelled in the early 1960s.
Years later, Nathan Cohen said he’d spent the first part of the night cursing the heat and uncomfortable chairs: “I started to take off my jacket, but no one else was doing that and I didn’t have the nerve to be the first.” As the performance wore on, though, he forgot about these irritations. At intermission, everyone talked about what a great thing was happening that night. “That excitement, that enthusiasm, just kept mounting,” he said. “We were as one with the actors. It was more than involvement. It was a mingling of soul. We felt that something absolutely original and world-important was going on, and we mixed our tensions and jubilation with that of the actors.”
After the performance, the curtain calls went on for five minutes, ending only when Guinness gave a brief speech. “Those of us who have come from England would like to express our thanks to the co-operation of the Canadian actors who have come from all over the country at sacrifice for the festival,” he said.
Photo of Alec Guinness and Irene Worth in All's Well That Ends Well, from the July 27, 1953, issue of Time (left); photo of the Duke of Clarence (Lloyd Bochner) being murdered in Richard III from the July 14, 1953, edition of the Windsor Star.
Critics were impressed, although some expressed reservations about the lighter-than-expected tone. “Mr. Guinness is fun to watch. Maybe too much fun,” observed Walter Kerr of the New YorkHerald-Tribune. “Mr. Guinness has played so much of the evening so lightly that he has prepared neither himself nor us for the open torments of the dawn soliloquy, or the final agonies of defeat. The performance is always interesting; but it still falls short of this monster’s full stature … The full roar of Shakespeare’s Richard may be missing from this summer-time excursion, but Stratford is still in possession of a jaunty, colourful show.”
The review everyone had been waiting for was Atkinson’s. His summary? “Spectacular production; shallow performance.” He praised Tanya Moiseiwitsch’s costumes and Guthrie’s sense of spectacle. He found Guinness’s performance amusing at the expense of the drama but said he was well supported by the rest of the cast.
Among local critics, the Beacon-Herald’s E.G. Neigh praised the Canadians in the cast and the battle scenes directed by Douglas Campbell. “Here was Shakespeare as Shakespeare intended it to be: spectacular movement and colour, exciting drama, great poetry, and penetrating study of the human heart.”
The Beacon-Herald, however, elected not to spotlight opening night as its main headline the next day. Instead, readers were hit first with “Ontario Cheese Producers Halt Bidding.” (The accompanying piece dealt with changes in cheese pricing that had followed negotiations between producers and federal agricultural officials; the changes were expected to speed up the sale of the 180,000 pounds of cheddar that entered the market each week.)
Front page of the July 14, 1953,, edition of the Beacon-Herald.
As per the alternating schedule, All’s Well opened July 14. The next morning, Atkinson called Patterson to invite him for dinner. “I thought I should tell you first, because as far as I’m concerned, last night Guthrie pulled a play out of the ash can and set it on a pinnacle.” For several years afterward, Atkinson and Patterson dined out together after opening night.
Reviews for All’s Well were glowing. According to Ottawa Citizen critic Lauretta Thistle, it was “a piece which elicited more brilliant acting from individuals than the Richard III of the previous evening.” All’s Well, she wrote, “blossoms beautifully,” and the modern dress made it more relatable to the audience. Atkinson described it as “like an elegant ballet that discloses the accomplishments of an excellent acting company. It would be impossible to find in North America another company so finished in comedy style and so attractive personally.”
Over the next week, more dignitaries attended the festival. Broadway impresario Billy Rose called it “the best tent theatre in North America,” praising the sight lines and acoustics. Governor-General Vincent Massey said that All’s Well had exceeded his greatest expectations.
The Stratford Adventure
Demand was so strong, the box office had trouble keeping up. By the end of week one, more than 10,000 had attended the nightly performances. The festival’s board had hoped to fill 60 per cent of the tent’s seats — the festival sold 98 per cent of its capacity. Special bus services between Toronto and Stratford were launched. Hotels in Kitchener and London reported good business. The season was extended by a week, to August 22, and the new tickets quickly sold out. A pro-festival local told Hawkins that “lots of people never thought we could put it over and they hate to eat humble pie.”
Guinness and Worth were overwhelmed with party invitations while in Stratford. “I have been practically killed with kindness,” Guinness told the Beacon-Herald as the festival wound down. “I think Canadians are the most kind and generous people I have ever encountered. I must say that people have been very thoughtful in their offers of hospitality, but it just hasn’t stopped. One can’t possibly repay their hospitality in any shape or form.” Guinness offered two members of the company — Richard Easton and future novelist Timothy Findley — an opportunity to study drama in England.
As the festival closed, a Toronto Telegram editorial reflected on its success and its significance to the rest of the province: “The Festival symbolizes the discovery that a summer season of plays, events, and attractions of some kind is a useful and lucrative project for any community in Ontario with the imagination and persistence to arrange it.”
Sources: Renown at Stratford by Tyrone Guthrie and Robertson Davies (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company, 1953); A Life in the Theatre by Tyrone Guthrie (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1960); Floodtides of Fortune: The Story of Stratford by Adelaide Leitch (Stratford: The City of Stratford, 1980); First Stage: The Making of the Stratford Festival by Tom Patterson and Allan Gould (Willowdale: Firefly Books, 1999); Stratford: The First Thirty Years by John Pettigrew and Jamie Portman (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1985); the July 21, 1953 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle; the July 8, 1953, July 9, 1953, July 11 1953, July 14, 1953, and July 15, 1953, editions of the Globe and Mail; the July 14, 1953, edition of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record; the July 15, 1953, July 16, 1953 and July 19, 1953, editions of the New York Times; the July 15, 1953, edition of the Ottawa Citizen; the June 30, 1953, July 10, 1953, July 13, 1953, July 14, 1953, July 15, 1953, July 16, 1953, July 17, 1953, July 20, 1953, July 22, 1953, and August 22, 1953, editions of the Stratford Beacon-Herald; the June 4, 1966, edition of the Toronto Star; and the July 11, 1953, edition of Weekend.