Settling pasts and settling futures: Negotiating narratives of nation at the 4th Line Theatre Production Company.

摘要

The 4th Line Theatre Production Company was established in 1992 by Robert Winslow on his family farm just outside of Millbrook, Ontario. The company, popular for its presentation of outdoor theatre in the barns and the fields of this rural setting, has a stated mandate to "preserve and promote our Canadian cultural heritage through the development and presentation of regionally based, environmentally staged historical dramas" (4th Line Theatre Website). As of August 2008, the company has produced thirty-six shows predominantly written by Winslow and staged with casts and crews from Millbrook, Peterborough, and Toronto (4th Line Theatre Website). This project investigates the 4th Line Theatre Company's contribution to the popular conception of local histories and how the reproduced narratives promote and perpetuate dominant ideologies of nationhood. To this end, this project analyzes the 4th Line Theatre as a cultural institution and as such does not specifically take up the theatricality of the productions. Although the scripts from the 2006 season are closely examined, a detailed performance analysis is not included herein. Utilizing materials from the company's 2006 season, this thesis provides analyses of the play texts, the theatre company's promotional material, and the physical space of the theatre. This analysis is used to make the case that the 4th Line "cultivates" a settler community as its audience. This project focuses on the specific practices of settler identity-making that take place at the 4th Line and how these practices align with a broader state-endorsed ideology of Canadian identity.;Keywords. Settler, colonialism, nation, theatre, Millbrook, Canada.