But this year, spending a week in Toronto for a cluster of gigs, and with an efficient friend to organize the tickets, bus and meal reservations, I managed a day trip. I was pleased to see women playing male roles and blacks playing white roles. I couldn’t help musing: what if the Stratford Festival didn’t yet exist? Considering the revolution in cultural values since the 1950s, would a putative Shakespeare festival even get to first base as a cultural project in our era? In academia, which produces our cultural elites, Shakespeare has become a lightning rod, a focus for the culture wars.

Source: National Post October 03, 2016 11:15 UTC