Robertson Davies, Playwright: A Search for the Self on the Canadian Stage

In this book, Susan Stone-Blackburn studies how the tastes and concerns of one of Canada's leading writers have been given dramatic expression, beginning with The King Who Could Not Dream and Benoni and ending with Question Time and Pontiac and the Green Man. She also examines how Davies' playwriting has been influenced by the dominant tastes of his time and by the conditions under which his plays have been performed. Dealing with the plays chronologically, Stone-Blackburn reveals Davies' fondness for theatricality as opposed to realism, for mythic flavour and archetypal character, his romanticism, and his irrepressible humour.