Four rural landscape paintings by James Reaney are part of the Pastorale exhibition at Museum London from July 16 to October 9, 2011. The paintings feature views of the Canadian farm and are chosen from the Museum’s permanent collection.
Drawing and painting were a “constant” in James Reaney’s life, and these landscape paintings grew out of a desire to “keep a record” of the world he knew (see Jean McKay’s article,“What on earth are you doing, Sir?” ArtScape, Issue 5, June 2006, 10). Here is a painting James Reaney made in Oxford County in 1978.
Watercolour by James Reaney, East Zorra, Oxford County, Near Cassel Mennonite Church, September 2, 1978
Here is a poem James Reaney wrote about the 1939 Royal Visit to Canada by Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
The Royal Visit
When the King and Queen came to Stratford
Everyone felt at once
How heavy the Crown must be.
The Mayor shook hands with their Majesties
And everyone presentable was presented
And those who weren’t have resented
It, and will
To their dying day.
Everyone had almost a religious experience
When the King and Queen came to visit us
(I wonder what they felt!)
And hydrants flowed water in the gutters
All day.
People put quarters on the railroad tracks
So as to get squashed by the Royal train
And some people up the line at Shakespeare
Stayed in Shakespeare, just in case—
They did stop too,
While thousands in Stratford
Didn’t even see them
Because the Engineer didn’t slow down
Enough in time.
And although,
But although we didn’t see them in any way
(I didn’t even catch the glimpse
The teacher who was taller did
Of a gracious pink figure)
I’ll remember it to my dying day.
Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on board the royal train, May 31, 1939.
The Royal Visit is included in James Reaney’s first collection of poems The Red Heart (1949). The poem also appears in James Reaney’s 1967 play Colours in the Dark, where it follows an actual letter a child wrote to his father describing how the Royal train failed to slow down on that day (see Act I Scene 13).
Congratulations to actor David Ferry, who wrote to us earlier this month to share this good news:
June 7/11
I wanted to let you know that today I was honoured with the 2011 Barbara Hamilton Award for excellence in the performing arts. This is one of the five special Dora Mavor Moore awards presented annually at the announcement of the DORA nominations. I am thrilled to be selected by the jury for this honour and humbled to join the extraordinary group of past recipients, all of whom I know or knew and have worked with (as I did with Barbara Hamilton) – a true sign of aging I think.
I have been blessed in the past with eight DORA nominations and have won DORAs for Best Actor, Best Director, and Lighting Design. And doubly fortunate, I was nominated again for Best Actor for my performance in “Blasted” last fall. My wife Kyra Harper was nominated as best actress for her fine work in “Vincent River,” which makes me more happy than does my own fortune.
Congratulations, David, and best wishes for continuing success in the years to come!
David Ferry was one of the original cast members of James Reaney’s The Donnellys Part I, Sticks and Stones, which was first performed at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario on November 24, 1973. Here are fellow actors Jerry Franken and David Ferry together in the poster from the Tarragon production.
Jerry Franken and David Ferry in The DonnellysDavid Ferry and Jerry Franken, May 30, 2011 in Stratford, Ontario
David Ferry has also recently edited a collection of plays by James Reaney for Playwrights Canada Press: Reaney Days in the West Room: Plays of James Reaney. David’s book includes seven of James Reaney’s plays: The Killdeer, Names and Nicknames, Listen to the Wind, The St.Nicholas Hotel, Gyroscope, Alice Through the Looking-Glass, and Zamorna!
Congratulations to Mrs. Val Smith and her Theatre Partnership class at the Port Dover Composite School on their very successful performance of Sticks and Stones in Port Dover on January 13th and 14th. Val Smith encouraged the cast by pointing out that this was “the most beautiful and most difficult text they had ever dealt with or would ever deal with in high school.”
Val Smith and the cast of Sticks and Stones, Lighthouse Festival Theatre, Port Dover
The students succeeded in both mastering the text and conveying the story to others. “This has been an experience they will remember for the rest of their lives,” says their teacher.
Students of Val Smith’s Theatre Partnership class at Port Dover Composite School will perform The Donnellys: Sticks and Stones on January 13 and 14 at 7 pm at the Lighthouse Theatre in Port Dover. Tickets are $5 and can be bought at the door. For more about what promises to be a lively production, see Daniel Pearce’s story in the Simcoe Reformer.
As a side note to Leith Peterson’s “Jamie and Jay’s 1965 Apple Butter Collaboration”, here is more about James Reaney’s adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, one of three marionette plays commissioned by Jay Peterson for the Western Fair in September 1965. Greg Curnoe created the Red Riding Hood marionettes and they are now part of the collection at Museum London. Jack Chambers made a film of the play (Little Red Riding Hood (1965)), which is available from the London Public Library.
(Note: This article originally appeared in The London Free Press, Sunday September 7, 2003, page T6.)
Western Fair in 2003 has goat milking, cooking demos, racing pigs, a world-class Neil Diamond impersonator and much more.
For all that, this year’s fall classic has nothing as subversive as Little Red Riding Hood. In 1965, the fair’s lures included a marionette version of the children’s folk tale – a subversive version.
Subversive? Little Red Riding Hood? Yes, Red, on film, still looks unconventional. Back in the 1960s, a big, bad wolf with U.S. flags for ears and a little H-bomb for company stirred the pot a little. Still does.
The fair’s Little Red Riding Hood was avant enough to boast marionettes and sets devised by Greg Curnoe, the late London artist. It was Curnoe’s concept to cast the Wolf as a U.S. imperialist predator and use the Vietnam-charged imagery of the day. Red, the wolf and the other marionettes are being donated to Museum London by Curnoe’s wife Shelia. They will be a terrific addition to the collection.
After its run at the fair, Red Riding Hood was filmed by another London artist, the late Jack Chambers. A copy of Chambers film is available on video from the London Public Library. A viewing of Chambers’ simple, direct and beautiful version last week brought back Western Fair memories and showed off Red’s arty side.
The plot is familiar. On her way to grandma’s house, Little Red Riding Hood is lured off the path into the forest. The evil wolf beats Red to granny’s, swallows up the old woman and then devours Red, too. Granny and Red are saved by a valiant huntsman who slays the wolf. Red – and the children in the audience – learn a valuable lesson about sticking to the straight and narrow.
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, Red Riding Hood and her mother.
Red was one of three marionette plays developed by my father and others for the 1965 fair. He’s the James Reaney credited as the “story adapter” in the Chambers film.
London writer and archivist Leith Peterson has mentioned the role played by her mother, Jessie (Jay) Peterson, in commissioning Red and other marionette works for the fair.
“Mom saw these shows as not just entertainment for children, but for adults as well. Red Riding Hood caused quite a bit of controversy because of its anti-Vietnam War message,” Peterson has written. Then a Western Fair board member, Jay Peterson was involved in helping create marionettes for other shows.
At the fair, it seemed dad and the others in the Red troupe were battling expectations that marionettes were the glossy creations seen on prime-time TV. Glossy is not the word for the stars of Red. They were really for prime Chambers, not TV.
The Free Press of September 1965 said Red “is another idiom again” – contrasting it with the other marionette plays at the fair. It calls Curnoe “a strong exponent of pop art” and says his “puppets have all been created out of ordinary kitchen utensils.”
As it says in the library catalogue, these Curnoe creations were “unusual marionettes… Red Riding Hood herself is a block of (brightly painted) wood with a red plastic sandpail for a hood and a (plastic) sieve fastened in front for a basket.”
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
Other characters were assembled from bits and pieces Curnoe had on hand. Granny was “just a teapot” with a teapot lid for a cap because she drank a lot of tea. The kids loved the teapot granny, even if adults saw her as “just a teapot.”
The Chambers film catches Red’s crazy humour. Courtesy of Curnoe, the huntsman had one of those toy guns that make a great rrrrrrr sound when fired. In the film, the huntsman is ready to shoot the buttons off anybody.
In the film’s first five minutes, he fires at a marionette of a hired-man, a character from another of the plays on the bill [Victor Nipchopper from Apple Butter]. The hired man is only there to set the scene and introduce Red’s cast.
Later, the huntsman fires at Red after asking her to put the cake intended for her grandma on her head. The gun-crazy huntsman wonders if she has ever heard of “Wilhelm Tell.” Bang, bang, bang. Rrr, rrr, rrr.
Red is terrified. There is a hole in her hood, she gasps.
“I guess your mother made it oversize,” the huntsman blandly says before pursuing the wolf.
From Jack Chambers’ 1965 film, the Huntsman and Red Riding Hood.
Seeing Red and company at the fair was magical. The young UWO [Western University] types and others pulling the strings were all friendly. John and Gillian Ferns, Chris Faulkner, Jill Bradnock, Ellen Richardson and Alvin Waggener are listed in the film credits. Hearing John’s booming voice and listening to granny singing a Welsh hymn –possibly the voice of his wife, Gillian – recalls an era when town and gown were smaller and closer.
They all worked hard. Red and the other shows were not just a matter of pulling a few strings. Some days, there were four marionette presentations at the Labbatt theatre. Most days, it was hot and noisy. It was never dull on either side of the stage.
Through all that, the collaboration of Curnoe, Chambers and many others endures.
Almost 40 years later, this made-in-London gem is still the best way to see Red.
September 1965 performance of Red Riding Hood at London’s Western Fair. Photo by Arnim Walter.
In 1965 James Reaney created three marionette plays: Apple Butter, an original work, and two adaptations, Red Riding Hood and Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Leith Peterson describes how her mother, Jay Peterson, came to commission the plays and help create the marionettes. The plays were performed by James Reaney and friends at the Western Fair in September 1965 in London, Ontario.
Jamie and Jay Peterson’s 1965 Apple Butter Collaboration
My mother, Jay Peterson, and Jamie [James Reaney] had a lot in common. Both were highly creative people who were good at getting projects not only off the ground, but also seeing them through to fruition. Mom, Jamie and Colleen teamed up on a number of adventures over the years, but the focus of this presentation will be Jamie and my mother’s 1965 Apple Butter collaboration.
In his 1990 Theatrum article entitled “Stories on a String,” Jamie said “…Jay Peterson was a cultural pillar of the town and she persuaded the Fair board to commission a marionette show from me…They actually gave me some money – one third of which went towards a tent, but the rest I salvaged to pay artists and manipulators for designs, puppets, theatre facades, as well as hours of gruelling work rehearsing, learning, and finally for ten days in mid-September, performing from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on the fairgrounds…Most of the manipulators were my graduate students. We still talk about those very happy, very busy days in the fall of 1965.”
From 1963 to 1970, my mother was a director of the Western Fair, so this is the fair Jamie is referring to. Apple Butter was one of three marionette productions commissioned for the 1965 fair. Greg Curnoe’s anti-Vietnam war piece called Red, and Jamie’s Aladdin rounded out the trio. My mother saw these shows as not just entertainment for children, but for adults as well.
Jamie described his Apple Butter effort as a “new venture. What I wanted to do in this fairy tale – where an orphan boy triumphs over the cruelties of his guardian – was to create a puppet hero for Southwestern Ontario similar to Russia’s Petrouchka and France’s Guignol.”
Hester Pinch, Solomon Spoilrod, and Apple Butter. (Inspired by the original set designed by James Anderson.)Victor Nipchopper from Applebutter makes an appearance in the prologue to Red Riding Hood. Red Riding Hood says: “You’re not in my story, Victor Nipchopper!” (The Red Riding Hood marionettes and set were designed by Greg Curnoe.)
The Apple Butter marionettes were made at my grandfather’s old print shop at Leith, Ontario. In his diary entry for August 23, 1965, Jamie chronicles my mother driving the Reaney family up to stay at the Peterson cottage, which was close to the print shop. Then on August 29, Jamie pens that his sister Wilma picked up the Reaneys and took them back to London. There is a wonderful photo of the Reaney family, including John and Wilma, on the front steps of the Peterson cottage. Jamie is holding Apple Butter.
The Reaneys with Apple Butter, August 1965. Photo by Jay Peterson.
I was at camp at the time the Reaneys were at Leith. However, Colleen, James, and Susan have provided details. In addition, I have asked my brothers, Stuart and Donald, for their input. Stuart remembers the Reaneys being at Leith and hanging out with James and John, but his only clear recollection is of James trying to convince him that the Dave Clark Five were better than the Beatles.
My brother Donald was just six at the time, but he enjoys reminiscing about “the making of Apple Butter and Moo Cow and how amazingly creative an effort it was.” He recalls all the Reaney children being there, including Susan, who was closest in age to him. What really stuck in his mind was Apple Butter and company hanging on the clothesline to dry. He described the whole experience as “pretty amazing.”
Jamie created Apple Butter, Treewuzzle and Rawbone. My mother made the heads as well as the papier-mache hands for the adult characters. Mom also designed Moo Cow — an impressive-looking bovine, with the map of Canada on one side, built into the Holstein’s black and white markings.
Leith Peterson shows off Moo Cow, August 2008. Photo by Susan Wallace.
Jamie said that at the Apple Butter production in the Western Fair tent, “babies who cried for everything else shut up for Moo Cow, while backstage visitors enquired after Rawbone with a great deal of respect.”
Apple Butter went on to further acclaim in other locations. After the Woodstock production, Jamie enthused that “children practically accompanied Apple Butter right to the station.” In his 1968 biography of Jamie, Alvin Lee noted that Apple Butter was an adaptation from a simple folklore story “with a built-in appeal to the young, as the enthusiastic responses of hundreds of children have shown.” And there was also a built-in appeal for adults, including my mother and Jamie, who had so much fun bringing it all together.
James Stewart Reaney, James Reaney’s son, adds this news of Apple Butter and friends:
January 15, 2009
Apple Butter and Friends are on their way to the Canadian Museum of Civilization
I’m happy to know other people love Apple Butter, one of the marionettes created by my father in 1965, as much as I do. Apple Butter and several other marionettes from the 1965 play by dad were collected today & are en route to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. One of the marionettes, Moo Cow, was created by the late Jay Peterson, who helped clear the way for these remarkable characters to play the 1965 edition of the fair. The marionettes, including Apple Butter himself, have undergone some modifications since they first put their strings in front of the public. But it’s a real honour to see such interest & I know dad would be proud.
My only regret is that Jim Anderson’s magnificent set for Apple Butter disappeared somewhere over the years. It was a classic look at a Souwesto home.
James Reaney’s childhood home near Stratford, Ontario
Stratford Central Secondary School’s new James C. Reaney Auditorium
Thank you all for coming to Friday night’s ceremony at Stratford Central Secondary School to dedicate its old auditorium, now the school’s drama centre, in honour of alumnus James Reaney.
The students gave a wonderful performance of Mimi Lights the Candle, a 1926 Christmas play by Edith Isham Coulter that James Reaney and his classmates put on at the school in 1943. As well as the carols in Mimi, students also sang “The Girls at Swift’s,” a song from King Whistle!, a play James Reaney wrote for the school’s centennial in 1979.
Special thanks to Stephanie Nescier for her excellent direction, and to Anne Swerdfager and the other members of the original 1979 cast of King Whistle! for singing along.
Thanks also to Ron Dodson for organizing this event, and to Lois Tarr, James Reaney’s classmate, for keeping her copy of Mimi Lights the Candle all these years. We know Dad would have been thrilled to be honoured in this way and to see you all enjoying the play.
James Stewart Reaney (James Reaney’s son) and his wife Susan Wallace James Stewart Reaney with Lois Tarr
November 26: The play was performed on the main floor and the audience was seated on the stage and around the performers. (Photo by Leith Peterson)
A scene from the play:
On Christmas Eve, Laura, Mimi’s long-absent mother, returns home.
Mimi: But you came!
Laura: Yes, because it was Christmas. My money was nearly gone, but I managed to pay my fare here. And then Mimi’s candle drew me.
November 26, 2010: Stratford Central Secondary School students in a scene from Mimi Lights the Candle. Photo by Wilma McCaig.
November 26, 2010: Carollers from Mimi Lights the Candle, Stratford Central Secondary School. Photo by Wilma McCaig.
On November 26 in Stratford, Ontario, please join us for a gala celebration at Stratford Central Secondary School to dedicate the James C. Reaney Auditorium. The evening will begin with a brief reception at 7:00 p.m. and the program will begin at 7:30 p.m.
As part of the evening’s celebrations, students will perform a scene from Mimi Lights the Candle, a school Christmas play written by Edith Isham Coulter in 1926, which James Reaney and classmates performed in 1943 when he was a student. Thank you Lois Tarr, a former classmate of James Reaney’s, for preserving your copy of the script all these years!
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Please reserve a seat by sending an email to stratfordcentralss@gmail.com or calling 519.271.4500 and asking for Diane Yausie, Head Secretary.
Stratford Central Secondary’s address is 60 St. Andrew Street, and the auditorium is located on the second floor near the front entrance to the school.
There is limited parking behind the school, and there are quite steep stairs at both the front and back of the school. Hope to see you there!
Thank you all for coming to the lecture on Sunday afternoon to hear Colleen Thibaudeau, James Reaney’s widow, talk about their early days together and read from some of his works.
For those of you who were unable to attend, Stratford Beacon Herald reporter Mike Beitz wrote about Thibaudeau’s talk here.
Our thanks also to the organizers of the lecture at the Stratford Public Library, Charles Mountford, Anne Marie Heckman, and Sam Coghlan. Colleen Thibaudeau especially appreciated all the help she has had from her family and others; she couldn’t have done it without you.
One of James Reaney’s poems that Colleen Thibaudeau read was “White Grumphies, white snow” from Souwesto Home, published by Brick Books.
“White Grumphies, white snow…”
The students of Agricultural Diploma, their fathers
Grow square miles of blue flowering flax near
Pilot Mound and square miles of yellow mustard which
I saw as I drove out from Minnesota,
Well knowing that in the fall, in the autumn,
We would be teaching them Robert Penn Warren’s Understanding Poetry, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,
Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Emily Dickinson.
As I climbed the stairs to their classroom
Over the Rupertsland Agricultural Auditorium,
Prepared to teach them “I heard a fly buzz when I died,”
I heard them splitting desk into kindling
For a bonfire in a waste paper basket where they
Burnt the texts on the course one by one,
Rainbow-coloured poems and prose they burnt,
Book by book, as I taught them.
As verbal virgins they were tougher
Than such pastoral nymphs as Diana or urban ones
Such as Athena.
However, a day or two later, taking a random stroll
Across the winter campus, I saw,
Around the corner of the Swine Barn, a herd
Of white, white pigs being driven into the barn
By my Aggie Dip students each with
A very proper and even beautiful pig-driving stick.
Was it their mid-term test in pig-herding?
It must have been.
The whiteness of the piggies against the whiteness of the snow
Presented them with optical problems.
They had trouble seeing me as well.
In fact not one of them did, for I
Was wearing this poem.
James Reaney, 2005
My editor, Stan Dragland, wishes me to explain “White Grumphies, white snow.” They are white pigs herded by agricultural students on a snowy day.
James Reaney and Colleen Thibaudeau near Stratford, Ontario, 1982.
James Reaney’s “I know an experience” is the 24th brush stroke fromthe multi-part poem “Brush Stokes Decorating a Fan.” (x)I know an experienceThat brings my 2 butterfly wingsTight togetherThen openNow shutDull blurSudden bright.Over the years our selvesHave been blendedBy all this together,Pleated & unpleating,Opening & closing,Tight together,Loose apart—Two sides of a breath James Reaney (2005)…
AlvegoRoot Theatre’s adaptation of James Reaney’s Take the Big Picture returns for an encore performance on Saturday June 27th at 2:00 pm at the Manor Park Memorial Hall in London. Director Adam Corrigan Holowitz says “If you missed the play, now is your chance to see this off-the-wall comedy that left audiences buzzing. If you saw…
June 10-14 at Fanshawe Pioneer Village, Alvegoroot Theatre presents Take the Big Picture, a two-act play based on James Reaney’s 1986 children’s novel. Director Adam Corrigan Holowitz describes his adaptation as a story about a family in conflict with the modern world: The story:The Delahay family is more than a little off balance and seventeen-year-old…
James Reaney 