Never Swim Alone and This is a Play

by Daniel MacIvor

Never Swim Alone is a play about two men locked in a deadly competition."...a perfectly self-contained and unabashedly artificial work… [MacIvor] is a writer with an angular sense of humour and an uncommon knack for probing basic elements and truths of human behaviour." —Vit Wagner, Toronto StarThis Is a Play is a hilarious postmodern romp through the interior lives of actors in a bad play."Ingenious, whimsical, a lyrical lunacy in the writing, This Is A Play is a theatre experience comedy you might associate with Tom Stoppard." —Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Canada

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Daniel MacIvor was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1962. He is a stalwart of the Canadian theatre scene, having written and directed numerous award-winning productions including See Bob Run, Wild Abandon, 2-2-Tango, This Is A Play, The Soldier Dreams, You Are Here, How It Works, A Beautiful View, Communion, Bingo! and his work has been translated into French, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, German and Japanese. From 1987 to 2007 with Sherrie Johnson he ran da da kamera, a respected international touring company which brought his work to Australia, the UK and extensively throughout the US and Canada. With long time collaborator Daniel Brooks, he created the solo performances House, Here Lies Henry, Monster, Cul-de-sac and This is What Happens Next.

Daniel won a GLAAD Award and a Village Voice Obie Award in 2002 for his play In On It, which was presented at PS 122 in New York. His play Marion Bridge received its off-Broadway premiere in New York in October of 2005. In 2006, Daniel received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for his collection of plays I Still Love You. In 2007, his play His Greatness won the Jessie Richardson Award for Best New Play in Vancouver. In 2008, he was awarded the prestigious Siminovitch prize in Theatre.

Also a filmmaker, Daniel has written and directed the feature films Past Perfect, Wilby Wonderful and the short films Permission and Until I Hear From You, and he is the writer of the feature films Trigger, Marion Bridge and co-writer (with Amnon Buchbinder) of Whole New Thing.

Currently, Daniel divides his time between Toronto and Avondale, Nova Scotia and he is playwright in residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nine Thoughts on Never Swim Alone

9. Experimental theatre excites the hell out of me, but it scares the shit out of most audiences. This thought makes me wonder if Never Swim Alone could even gain a contemporary audience that wasn't at a Fringe festival. I doubt it.

8. We are all so damaged.

7. Canada is a much darker place than those of you who see us as a kind and gentle land can know. All that is sinister in Scandinavian Literature comprises our everyday hidden layers. We are as they.

6. We talk about white male privilege, but don't dig into what that entails beyond the "privileges." We need to be thinking more deeply about this, talking more deeply about this, following it to all its drafty and rotting crawlspaces and attics.

5. Swimming as murder metaphor? Swimming as rape metaphor? Swimming as rape-murder metaphor? Not in 1988 when Daniel MacIvor wrote Never Swim Alone, but now, forty-two years later, the experience of reading the play means those unintended metaphors create expectations the literal action of the play cannot meet. What does that say about who we've become and what today's expectations are?

4. The homoerotic triangle is at work in this play, and Frank & Bill and their guns ... well, that metaphor may have been intended in 1988.

3. Like father like son. Too right.

2. We often think of men as children; the infantile structure of our Western Economic and Political systems (and the deep erosion of our Social systems) make men so, and increasingly women (as they engage more equally in a system that no one should aspire to be part of).

1. How are we still a species on this planet? How?

[Sav · Rating 5 out of 5]

daniel macivor may I please study your brain please.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started and read this short play book in one day. I loved the two plays featured in this book, they were very funny and absurd. I wish I could seem them performed.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw a student production of Never Swim Alone at the Sears Drama Festival when I was in grade 11. This one-act play changed my perception of the theatre, and challenged my preconceived notions of what a play "should" be. The unconventional style of Daniel MacIvor introduced me to the realm of postmodernism. In my first year of university, I checked out a copy at the library in order to prepare for an audition for a local production of the play. Although I wasn't cast in Never Swim Alone, I received a role in another show that was a part of the same festival. The three actors cast in Never Swim Alone were perfect for their respective roles, and watching them onstage was a learning experience in itself.

You should read this play - but, you should really see a live staging as well, if you can. To read the unusual syncopated words of the characters is one thing, but to see a well rehearsed rendition of the play is quite the theatrical experience.

One of the best contemporary Canadian plays i've had the pleasure of reading.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

These two plays were both of an "experimental" nature. Somewhat of a cross between Tom Stoppard and Jean-Claude van Itallie, perhaps. I enjoyed both of them, though Never Swim Alone was a little more confusing and with less clear purpose.

This Is A Play was actually quite funny and I would seriously consider doing it if I had the right performers. The main point of it is that three actors are performing a play and while we do hear some of their dialog, we mostly hear their thoughts. What makes it quite funny is that they don't think much of each other or the play itself.

Worth a read if you're interested in theatre.

[Martin Denton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is only about Never Swim Alone; the book I have only contains that play.

"Never Swim Alone is a competition." That's what it says on the back cover of the published script of this play by Daniel MacIvor; but that's only half the story. Never Swim Alone is a competition about a competition. This is meta-theatre at its most riveting: a deconstruction of machismo played out in the most macho arena imaginable. It's a verbal sparring match in thirteen rounds; a battle through the dangerous terrain of masculine bravado. It's about size, stamina, and strength; about opportunity, control, and power: about winning, about being first. About winning.

It's about two men asserting, proving, glorifying their manliness. It's about two men hell-bent on gaining the advantage, shamelessly currying our favor while just as shamelessly undermining their opponent. It's about two men performing, in a theater, actively seeking approval and applause. It's life and death and life-and-death, and it's theater (or performance) as a metaphor for same. We've seen a lot of this sort of thing before, but it's somehow more vivid in Never Swim Alone: the stakes are alarmingly high, and the danger of a standoff is alarmingly--well--dangerous.

The first man, Frank, introduces himself with a quote from Nietzsche: "We do not place especial value on the possession of virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent." Neat. The second man, Bill, rebuts with a quote from his own dear old dad: "If bullshit had a brain it would quote Nietszche." See how it works? Never Swim Alone feels like theater, looks like theater, and sounds like theater; but it's as honest and as scary as real life.

Frank and Bill are lifelong friends, except that the society they live in has managed to turn them into lifelong rivals instead. Before Never Swim Alone is over we'll see them batter each other with repartee, then recrimination, then actual weaponry; cheap shots give way to gunshots. And we'll learn of an event in their past that became defining for them: an awful manifestation of the values they will come to embody as they grow into manhood.

The cumulative emotional wallop that Never Swim Alone packs is substantial and severe: even if you see it coming, you can't really prepare for it. (There it goes acting like life again.) That's because for most of its running time, Never Swim Alone is enormously funny and dazzlingly inventive: all craft and artifice, it keeps us engaged and entertained with its stunning theatricality.

[shinji · Rating 4 out of 5]

both r really good, this is a play is probably my favorite

[Pyper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know some brilliant actors who would do Never Swim Alone very well. Here’s to the world reopening and seeing it someday! This Is A Play is fun too. Theatre for theatremakers.

[Gareth Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

NEVER SWIM ALONE
Such a fun and almost interactive feeling concept.
Love that someone lied and they both had a gun, really surprises the audience.
I really appreciate that it ends in a standstill so we never find out which gun is loaded.

THIS IS A PLAY
Quite funny, especially for people who have performed on stage.
Seems like it is so short.
I don’t really understand why the composer is the fourth character and not the writer or the director.

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read "Never Swim Alone."

[Caleb Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my absolute favorite play of all time. It tells a dark, tragic story framed in a quirky surrealistic setting. Its the perfect play for actors, directors, designers, and really all aspects of theater. It is one of those pieces that resonates and speaks volumes even just reading it. An absolute masterpiece.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read Never Swim Alone.