Department of English Publications
City Stages: Theatre and Urban Space in a Global City (Review)
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
Winter 2009
Volume
78
Issue
1
Journal
University of Toronto Quarterly
First Page
393
Last Page
395
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1353/utq.0.0547
Abstract
Michael McKinnie’s City Stages is a groundbreaking book, the first full-length text to treat the complex intersection of theatre, urban policy, socioeconomics, and political ideology in what McKinnie terms ‘global’ Toronto. At first glance such a topic might not seem especially revolutionary: after all, human geographers such as Edward Soja and David Harvey have been preoccupied with the vicissitudes of urban culture for more than two decades. What makes McKinnie’s text both unique and valuable is its avenue of approach: it understands the spaces of theatre – both its literal, physical spaces and its imaginary, creative spaces – as integral to civic politics and civil life, integral enough to warrant a specifically theatre-focused study of how Toronto has developed over the last half century into a city shaped by performance. In his comprehensive yet lively introduction, McKinnie lays out the research questions that drove his study along these very lines: ‘Was the calculus of how theatre in Toronto could be staged informed by assumptions of where it could be staged? Did the particular urban geography of Toronto itself play a part in theatrical production in the city? And, inversely, did theatre play a part in the urban development of Toronto?’
Publication Status
1
