Poet, Playwright, and Artist (1926 – 2008)
All the best for the holidays and for 2015
Director Jillian Keiley’s production of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, adapted for the stage by James Reaney, opens December 9 to January 3 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
Jillian Keiley is the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre Artistic Director, and she led a successful production of Alice Through the Looking Glass at the Stratford Festival earlier this summer.
Order tickets online here or call the National Arts Centre box office at 613-947-7000 x620 (1-866-850-ARTS x620). The National Arts Centre is located at 53 Elgin Street in Ottawa.
◊ Meet some of the cast of Alice Through the Looking Glass: Introducing the National Arts Centre’s 2014-15 Ensemble.
◊ Come and hear Jillian Keiley at “Points of View: Alice Through the Looking Glass” on December 13 (12:45 pm) in Ottawa.
◊ Enjoy more Lewis Carroll at the National Arts Centre with the National Ballet’s Alice in Wonderland, April 9-12, 2015.
◊ For a closer look at the text, James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass is available from the Porcupine’s Quill.
Richard Macmillan Stingle, long-time friend and colleague of James Reaney, passed away on November 22 at University Hospital in London, Ontario.
Richard was a friend and mentor to many of us, and we will remember him for his fierce wit and his generous spirit.
For more memories of Richard, see Don Hair’s tribute and JBNBlog.
May 25, 2010: Richard Stingle on James Reaney’s A Suit of Nettles
Thank you all for coming to the Fifth Annual James Reaney Memorial Lecture in Stratford to hear publisher Tim Inkster’s talk on “The Iconography of James Reaney: A Collector’s Manual.”
Inkster praised the excellence of the typography and graphic design in many of James Reaney’s published works, particularly Paul Arthur’s design for The Red Heart (1949) and Allan Fleming’s design for A Suit of Nettles (1958). Tim is also impressed by James Reaney’s work hand typesetting the early issues of his magazine Alphabet (1960-1971).
A full version of Tim Inkster’s lecture will appear in an upcoming issue of The Devil’s Artisan, a journal of the printing arts.
Our thanks also to Charles Mountford of Poetry Stratford and Robyn Godfrey of the Stratford Public Library for their help in organizing this event. Future speakers for the James Reaney Annual Memorial Lecture include Thomas Gerry and John Beckwith.
For more about the lecture, see JBNBlog and Laura Cudworth‘s article in the October 20, 2014 e-edition of the Stratford Beacon Herald (page A1).
Join us on Sunday, October 19 at 2:30 pm at The Atrium (behind Café Ten) in Stratford, Ontario, for a talk about graphic design in James Reaney’s work by publisher Tim Inkster.
Tim Inkster is particularly intrigued by the excellence of the design in James Reaney’s first book, The Red Heart (1949), one of the nine titles in McClelland & Stewart’s Indian File series (1948-1958) and designed by Paul Arthur (1924-2001).
Café Ten is located at
10 Downie Street,
Stratford, Ontario
N5A 7K4
Tel: (519) 508-2233
The annual lecture is a project developed by The Stratford Public Library and Poetry Stratford, and features a talk by a person who is knowledgeable about the life and work of Stratford poet and playwright James Reaney and of writing in the Southwestern Ontario region, which is such a strong element in Reaney’s writing.
From the suite of poems The Young Traveller (1964)
After four, when home from school.
A boy down the farm walks,
To get the mail the mailman’s left
In the backroad mailbox.
Oh things to watch and things to think
As I walk down the lane
Between the elmtree and the fence
Things that are not plain.
For instance is the elmtree there
Still there when I am past it?
I jump about and there it is
Certain to all my wit.
But could it still not be
That when my back is turned
It disappears and nothing is?
Why not, I’ve still not learned.
There’s sedge in the marsh to look at
And dark brown curled dock.
Why do I love the weeds so
And examine every stalk?
Back at the house they tell him
That although he was at the mailbox
He forgot to get the mail out
So back again he walks.
The fields are dark, the sky dark gray
The farmhouse lights come on
And dimmer lights in barns,
One reflected in the pond.
This time there’s less to think upon
Since all the detail’s gone
But what news and what mail I get
To reflect upon —
The world in huge butterflies of paper —
(And here’s the comfort)
Will still not be as interesting
As walking twice for it.
James Reaney, 1964
From Poems by James Reaney, New Press, 1972.
James Reaney’s thoughts on putting on your own version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass:
Is There Life After Alice? That is, after you’ve seen the show, what do you do when you get home? … Once when I was eight, I had a parallel experience to the one you may have just had, of watching a professional production, authentically acted with exuberance and supported by sophisticated design and fabulous illusions and compelling direction. My theatrical experience wasn’t a play though. In those days, Stratford was not as lucky as it is nowadays, but what it was was my very first circus — Ringling Brothers — an absolutely enthralling show, unforgettably enchanting. The only reaction you could have was to go home and put on your own circus, in this case with my cousins and whatever the farm could muster. Cows as elephants? Of course, you couldn’t rival the production you had just seen, but what you could do was with your own simplicity rival its feeling, and the attempt turned me into an artist. I don’t see this as an improbable effect of the show you have just seen and I hope that the various first steps I have described in paralleling its effects and impacts may lead some of you to a lasting love of theatre and art…
—From Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass: Adapted for the stage by James Reaney, pages 133 and 141.
Jillian Keiley’s new production of Alice Through the Looking-Glass continues this summer at the Stratford Festival, May 31 to October 12. To buy tickets, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca
To celebrate the new Stratford Festival production of James Reaney’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass, the Porcupine’s Quill is offering a chance to win a free copy of the book!
Jillian Keiley’s new production of Alice Through the Looking-Glass continues this summer at the Stratford Festival, May 31 to October 12. To buy tickets, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca
Join us on Monday June 9 at 7 pm at the London Public Library for a lecture by James Stewart Reaney (James Reaney’s son) about the founding of Alpha Centre, an arts space devoted to drama where many of James Reaney’s “Listeners’ Workshops” were held. James Reaney described the new space and the activities there in Issue 13 of Alphabet (June 1967):
“[…] Just out of range — that part of Talbot Street across Dundas where a newly painted green door has appeared leading to newly founded Alpha Centre — in part a fulfullment of the editorial for Alphabet (4) — devoted to drama in Canada. This is “the bare long room” up above a store — it’s an old Legion Hall. Here Listeners’ Theatre Workshop has been meeting with its new kind of play theatre — children and young people pretending to be mirrors chromosomes marionettes, trees, rivers, — the Victoria Boat Disaster. Here Jack Chambers has been working on his Viet Nam film [Hybrid (1966)] transposing images of roses with those of burnt children. Here all of Paradise Lost and all of Blake’s Jerusalem were read at a sitting — experiences that showed me new depths in these poems….” [Alphabet Issue 13, June 1967, Editorial, page 2]
Note from Susan Reaney: My brother James is the first speaker in the library’s new series of local talks — Terrific Tales of London and the Area. If you remember the green door at 389 Talbot Street, come to the Stevenson & Hunt Room at the London Public Library (Central Branch) on Monday June 9th at 7 pm to share your stories. (The Alphabet Press printing shop was not far from Alpha Centre on the second floor of the Dixon Building, 430 Talbot Street.)
Previews for the new production of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass, adapted for the stage by James Reaney, began earlier this month at the Stratford Festival. Director Jillian Keiley and designer Bretta Gerecke promise a lavish, child-inspired production:
“As children take inspiration from their own lives, Bretta and I have planned a world as created by the child Alice – full of bicycles and toy wagons, kites and chessboards,” says Ms Keiley. “But since this world is through the looking-glass, bicycles have giant trees growing out of the handlebars, red toy wagons inspire a flotilla for the Queen’s entrance, and the kings and queens of chessboards join all the characters from Alice’s mounds of books. Our goal is to tap into that wonderful world of seven-year-olds, where anything is not only possible but likely, and the only thing you can reasonably expect is the unexpected.”
The show runs May 31 to October 12 at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. For tickets, contact the box office at 1.800.567.1600 or visit stratfordfestival.ca
For a tantalizing glimpse of the production, see the “Alice Through the Looking-Glass” preview on YouTube.
Update June 2: What reviewers are saying: “Lufrednow. Or, from the other side of the looking glass: wonderful.” — Laura Cudworth in The Beacon Herald
“This smashing production of Alice Through the Looking-Glass truly deserves it. If you don’t know a child, rent one for the afternoon and go see this show.” — Richard Ouzounian, The Toronto Star
For more about the Alice opening show, see JBNBlog.
Several Forum events and activities offer a chance to explore Alice Through the Looking-Glass, including Alice Adventure Lunches, a themed meal and activity to ignite your child’s imagination before the magic unfolds on stage; Adapting Alice, a panel discussion including Jillian Keiley and Peter Hinton, playwright for the Shaw Festival; and Acting Up: Alice, a drama workshop in which 8- to 10-year-olds use costumes to explore scenes and characters from the play.
Alice Through the Looking-Glass is a Schulich Children’s Play presentation and produced in association with Canada’s National Arts Centre.
At the May 5, 2014 preview performance of Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Chris Spaleta from Seaforth, Ontario was presented with a lifetime pass for two for being the Stratford Festival’s 26 millionth patron!
