The Royal Arctic Theatre and the Search for the Franklin Expedition
Thurs, Oct 24
The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford
32388 Veterans Way, Abbotsford, BC
7pm | Free
UFV professor and author Heather Davis-Fisch presents Harlequin in the Arctic: The Royal Arctic Theatre and the Search for the Franklin Expedition.
During the Royal Navy’s search for the Franklin Expedition, which disappeared in the Arctic in 1845, amateur theatre played a central role in shipboard life. To occupy time during long winters, sailors and officers wrote and produced plays, created costumes and sets, and even reviewed plays in newspapers printed aboard their ships. This talk will discuss the performance practices of the Royal Arctic Theatre and the 1850 play Zero, or Harlequin Light and will argue that theatre was not only entertainment but also very serious business, helping maintain naval discipline and preparing men to participate in arduous overland searches for the missing Franklin expedition.
Heather Davis-Fisch teaches English and theatre at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her teaching and research interests include: intercultural and indigenous performance, Canadian theatre history and post-colonial theory. She is the author of Loss and Cultural Remains in Performance: The Ghosts of the Franklin Expedition (2012)