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Michael Cook (playwright)

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Michael Cook
Born(1933-02-14)14 February 1933
Fulham, London, England
Died2 July 1994(1994-07-02) (aged 61)
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
OccupationTheatre reviewer and playwright
Period1966 - 1987

Michael Cook (14 February 1933 – 2 July 1994) was an English-born Canadian playwright known for his plays set in Newfoundland.[1][2]

Early life

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Cook was born in Fulham, London, England to Anglo-Irish parents. He attended boarding schools until age fifteen and joined the British Army in 1949.[3] He served for twelve years, mostly in Asia, including Japan where he saw the Ama (Japanese female free-divers) harvesting shellfish, sea urchins, pearls, etc., from the ocean.[citation needed] He married Muriel Horner in 1951 and had eight children. Between 1962 and 1966, he attended the University of Nottingham, earning teaching qualifications.[2][4]

Career

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After graduating in 1966, Cook left his family and moved to Newfoundland to work as a schoolteacher. In 1967, he began his career at Memorial University of Newfoundland, first as a drama specialist with the MUN Extension Service and later becoming an associate professor in the English department.[5] Soon after arriving in Newfoundland, he wrote scripts for several radio dramas which were produced in St. John's.[6] He also reviewed plays and wrote articles about the importance of theatre in the St. John's Evening Telegram and the Canadian Theatrical Review.[7]

In 1970, Cook formed the amateur theatre company The Open Group with Clyde Rose and Richard Buehler and began to write plays for this group.[8] He wrote a number of plays set in Newfoundland, beginning with Tiln, written in 1971.[9] His best-known works are Jacob's Wake and The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, in which Newfoundland provides a sometimes realistic and sometimes symbolic backdrop for his poetic rendering of lives in continual conflict with natural elements.[10] Many of Cook's plays include dialogue written in Newfoundland English.[11]

In the mid-1970s, Cook began to spend time on Random Island and Fogo Island, marrying Madonna Decker in 1973.[12] In 1977, he was playwright-in-residence in the Banff Playwrights Lab at the Banff Centre for the Arts.[13] From 1982, they lived in Stratford, Ontario, where he was playwright-in-residence in 1987. He would often spend his summers on Random Island.[5]

In 1994, while making his way to his summer home on Random Island after visiting St. John's to see a staging of The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance, Cook became ill and died back in St. John's.[14][5]

His plays have been performed throughout North America, as well Poland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, the United Kingdom and Ireland.[15]

Personal life

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Cook married three times, and fathered fourteen children, including actor Sebastian Spence by his second wife, Janis Spence, to whom he was married 1967–73.[16][2]

Works

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Stage plays

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  • The J. Alfred Prufrock Hour (performed 1968)
  • Tiln (first broadcast 1971; performed 1972)
  • Colour the Flesh the Colour of Dust (performed 1971; published by Simon and Pierre, 1974)
  • The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance (performed at Arts and Culture Centre, St. John's, 1973; published 1974)
  • Jacob's Wake (performed at Arts and Culture Centre, St. John's, 1974; published by Talonbooks, 1975)
  • Quiller (performed 1975)
  • The Fisherman's Revenge (performed 1976; published by Playwrights Canada, 1985)[17]
  • Therese's Creed (performed at Centaur Theatre, Montreal, 1977). Title also variously spelled as "Terese" and "Theresa".
  • Not as a Dream (performed at Dalhousie University, Halifax, 1976)
  • On the Rim of the Curve (performed at Newfoundland Drama Festival, 1977)
  • The Gayden Chronicles (performed 1978; published by Playwrights Canada, 1979)
  • The Apocalypse Sonata (performed at Globe Theatre, Regina, 1980)
  • The End of the Road (written 1981). Earlier drafts were titled All the Funny People Are Dead and The Deserts of Bohemia.
  • The Great Harvest Excursion (written 1986; published 1994)[18]

Compilations

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  • Quiller / Tiln: Two One-Act Plays (Playwrights Co-op, 1975)
  • Tiln & Other Plays (Talonbooks, 1976). Includes Tiln, Quiller and Therese's Creed.[19]
  • Three Plays (Breakwater Books, 1977). Includes The Head, Guts and Soundbone Dance; On the Rim of the Curve; and Therese's Creed.

Radio plays

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  • No Man Can Serve Two Masters, first broadcast April 8, 1966
  • How to Catch a Pirate, first broadcast June 8, 1966
  • A Walk in the Rain, first broadcast January 18, 1967
  • Or the Wheel Broken, first broadcast June 18, 1967
  • A Time for Doors, first broadcast March 13, 1968
  • The Truck, first broadcast August 18, 1968
  • The Concubine, first broadcast February 16, 1969
  • To Inhabit the Earth Is Not Enough, first broadcast September 21, 1969
  • The Ballad of Patrick Docker, first broadcast November 25, 1970
  • Journey into the Unknown, 1970
  • There's a Seal in the Bottom of the Garden, first broadcast June 19, 1971
  • Love Is a Walnut, first broadcast August 20, 1972
  • Apostles for the Burning, first broadcast December 4, 1973
  • Travels with Aunt Jane, 12 episodes broadcast weekly starting July 10, 1974 starring Jane Mallett
  • Knight of Sorrow, Lady of Darkness, first broadcast August 10, 1976
  • The Producer, the Director, 1976
  • Ireland's Eye, first broadcast April 19, 1977
  • The Gentleman Amateur, 1977
  • The Hunter, 1981
  • All a Pack o' Lies, 1981
  • The Terrible Journey of Frederick Dunglass, first broadcast January 22, 1982
  • The Preacher, first broadcast December 12, 1982
  • The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone, first broadcast June 3, 1984
  • This Damned Inheritance, first broadcast November 11, 1984
  • The Bailiff and the Women, first broadcast November 16, 1984
  • The Ocean Ranger, first broadcast March 31, 1985
  • The Saddest Barn Dance Ever Held, first broadcast April 28, 1985
  • The Hanging Judge, first broadcast October 27, 1985
  • The Moribundian Memorandum, 1986

Other

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  • In Search of Confederation, 1971, television play
  • "The Island of Fire: Chapter One of a Novel in Progress". Aurora: New Canadian Writinq 1980. Ed. Morris Wolfe. Toronto: Doubleday, 1980, pp. 33–48.

Further reading

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  • Craig Walker, "Michael Cook: Elegy, Allegory and Eschatology," The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

References

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  1. ^ "Michael Cook". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Kirkpatrick, D. L. (Daniel Lane) (1988). Contemporary dramatists. Chicago ; London: St. James. pp. 96–98. ISBN 978-0-912289-62-5.
  3. ^ Lisa De Leon. Writers of Newfoundland and Labrador: Twentieth Century. Jesperson Press; 1 January 1985. ISBN 978-0-920502-58-7. p. 267.
  4. ^ Michael Cook entry at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  5. ^ a b c "Michael Cook". Heritage Newfoundland, www.heritage.nf.ca
  6. ^ Literary History of Canada: Canadian Literature in English, Volume IV (Second Edition). University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division; 15 December 1990. ISBN 978-1-4875-9116-8. p. 199–.
  7. ^ Page, Malcolm (1994). Biocritical Essay (Michael Cook). University of Calgary Press. ISBN 978-1-895176-52-0.
  8. ^ Devine, Michael (1 January 2004). "Cultural Evolution in Newfoundland Theatre: The Rise of the Gros Morne Theatre Festival". Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada. ISSN 1913-9101.
  9. ^ María Jesús Hernáez Lerena. Pathways of Creativity in Contemporary Newfoundland and Labrador. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 18 September 2015. ISBN 978-1-4438-8333-7. p. 193–.
  10. ^ Craig Stewart Walker. The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP; 2001. ISBN 978-0-7735-2075-2. p. 83–.
  11. ^ Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics. Routledge; 11 September 2002. ISBN 978-1-134-87700-3. p. 179–.
  12. ^ John Robert Colombo. Canadian Literary Landmarks. Dundurn; 1 January 1984. ISBN 978-1-4597-1798-5. p. 22–.
  13. ^ "A Brief History of the Banff Playwrights Lab". www.banffcentre.ca. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  14. ^ Lynde, Denise (1 June 1994). "In Memoriam Michael Cook". Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada. ISSN 1913-9101.
  15. ^ The CTR anthology : fifteen plays from Canadian Theatre Review. Toronto ; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1993. ISBN 978-0-8020-6812-5.
  16. ^ "Director, actor Janis Spence dead at 61". CBC News, Feb 07, 2008
  17. ^ Cook, Michael (1985). The fisherman's revenge. Toronto: Playwrights Canada. ISBN 978-0-88754-385-2.
  18. ^ Inter-plays : works and words of writers and critics : a festschrift published in honour of Albert-Reiner Glaap. St. John's, NF, Canada: Breakwater. 1994. ISBN 978-1-55081-078-3.
  19. ^ Cook, Michael (1976). Tiln & other plays. Vancouver: Talonbooks. ISBN 978-0-88922-107-9.
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