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Modern Canadian Plays
"Wasserman's introduction gives the best short outline I know of the development of the Canadian theatre". -- Modern Drama
402 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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June 1, 2019The introduction provides an expansive survey of milestones in Canadian theatre and spins a compelling narrative of an upstart theatre movement that pulled itself up from nothing in sixty short years. No mention of the fringe festival movement - odd.
The Ecstacy of Rita Joe - as the editor's note indicates, Rita appropriates experience but seems to have done its homework; the circumstances and psychologies of the characters are believable and heartfelt. Ryga's cast of indigenous people seem authentic (which might say more about the reader than the writer) and the injustice of their choice - live pigeonholed on a reserve or suffer indignity in the city- is resonant and moving.
The plot is a Kafkaesque masterpiece of biased institutions, perverse or crooked denizens, and absurd requirements - the employment office insisting on communicating by phone to Jaimie after he's told them he has no phone, the boss who fires Rita after raping her, the teacher who uses her distaste for Rita to condemn her in the court.
The stage directions are exacting and technically demanding - a precise combination of movement and lighting define whether a scene is in the past or present - or a dream - if a director bungles these elements, Rita is incomprehensible.
This is an ambitious play on a culturally sensitive issue - an apt representative of the works that follow.
Fortune and Men's Eyes - An important but uncomfortable read...I can't imagine making it through a staging. A prison drama set in a boy's reformatory, Fortune exposes a deeply repressed corner of Canada's cultural landscape: the cyclical and self - fulfilling world of youth corrections.
The dialogue's authenticity shines through the outdated slang and references; the characters are distinct and memorable. Smitty's metamorphosis from apprentice to master is as horrifying as it is expert. Queenie and Rocky offer opposite routes to the same, sad end - Rocky as the hardened, grim criminal and Queenie as the vivacious hedonist. Mona is a fascinating tragedy.
Stage direction is much looser than Rita Joe's and the aesthetic is realist...Fortune purports documentary instead of Rita's fluid dream/memory state.
It's unfortunate that the subject matter of Fortune keeps it out of classrooms. It has the historical distinction of being the first Canadian national play to find success globally (even when it was largely spurned locally) and it's no surprise. Fortune is wonderfully efficient in staging and as poetic in its vulgarity as David Mamet or Kevin Smith.
Les Belles-Soeurs - Unforgettable and awesome in many of the same ways as Fortune: the story of Germaine's 'lottery' win - and the explosion of jealousy and recrimination that it ignites in her family and friends- reveals the sick realities of life in working-class Quebec. Where Tremblay's masterpiece exceeds its predecessors is in its use of magical realism and comedy to pillory sacred institutions and expose hypocrisy in the everyday.
The surreal choral odes, musical numbers, and Brechtian winking at the audience provide bright relief from an otherwise pessimistic story. Wasserman correctly identifies Belles as a tragicomedy: we laugh with the characters while we cry for them.
Wasserman's introduction is excellent and clearly explains the cultural significance of Belles for both French and English Canada. The history (and biography) is just as dramatic as the play itself.
Creeps - Like Fortune, a riveting read that promises an uncomfortable performance. The realist depiction of 'spastic ' characters presents a daunting challenge to actors and audience. Thoroughly disenfranchised, the characters live in a world without hope, even for the merest shred of dignity or independence. The condescension, marginalization, and infantilization they suffer is laid bare in simple, clear dialogue (with a few absurdist asides) which indicates beyond doubt who the real creeps are.
Leaving Home - A Maritime-diaspora riff on King Lear. Brothers Bill and Ben Mercer are both preparing to leave the family home...one in matrimony and the other to escape his overbearing father, Jacob. As Bill prepares for his shotgun-wedding to Kathy, whose family is linked to the Mercers already, old grudges and long-simmering rivalries rise to the surface. Jacob's larger-than-life personality ignites a series of confrontations that end in tragedy for some and comedy for others.
David French crafts his characters with painstaking precision and, even on the page, there is an organic, vibrant life to them. The 'Newfie' immigrants -Jacob, his wife Mary, and Minnie - are vivacious, extroverted personalities while their kids are subdued and bland by comparison (although Kathy has a bit of dark turn in the second act).
The themes of generational strife, conflict, and coming-of-age are well explored and make the play feel wholly current, despite being rooted in time and place. The aesthetic is the most totally realist in the collection so far...the unities of time and place are enforced and there are no magical/internal asides, flashbacks, or dream sequences.
Leaving Home reads like a timeless performer's play. It's characters are complex of mind and simple of heart. Jacob's game of, 'who loves me best' rivals Lear's and is completely worth reading and seeing.
1837: The Farmers' Revolt - the production journal in the prologue is a fascinating document of both the collective creation processes and the clash between the incumbent British/American companies and the emergent mid-size independent theatres in Toronto. It seems, in this case, that life mirrored art.
Act 1 is a strong anthology that outlines the grievances, frustrated hopes, and stymied ambitions of the common folk of Upper Canada. A few key, historical characters are introduced: William Lyon Mackenzie, Sir Francis Bond Head, Robert Davis and so on...but no sense of an emerging protagonist. I'm not sure that's a problem - as of the end of act one, the breadth of characters and depth of world building make it easy for a reader (and probably an audience too..) to insert themselves into the narrative...one which has hardly changed in nearly 200 years. The institutional nepotism, corruption, and elitism of the colony are all too recognizable in today's Ontario making this piece more topical than ever.
Act 2 is an edge-of-your-seat rush that masterfully binds the disparate threads of Act 1 into a shocking tragedy. The montage that encompasses the battle and its heartbreaking fallout are evocative, minimalist masterpieces. 1837 shines a light on a piece of our local history that is all but redacted nationally. An absolute masterpiece.
Walsh - A more focused, personal history drama, Sharon Pollock's tense Mountie play evokes a living, breathing Canadian West - a cosmopolitan crossroads of French, English, American, Native, Metis, Scottish, and Irish characters. Without getting into the detailed analysis this play deserves, it is safe to say that this story is timely, present, and revealing. Top 3.
The St. Nicholas Hotel - Fascinating story but almost incomprehensible on the page. The cast is unwieldy in it's size and the stage direction left me confused about who mattered and who didn't. There's a stream of consciousness quality to the writing that is interesting and the history that the play springs from is some of the most interesting available: scapegoat-ing, political polarization, mob mentality, grudges, murder...rich material. I found reading it to be a slog but I think I'd still go out of my way to see it.
The pieces of a great play are in here...I just can't see how they fit together on the page.
The Ecstacy of Rita Joe - as the editor's note indicates, Rita appropriates experience but seems to have done its homework; the circumstances and psychologies of the characters are believable and heartfelt. Ryga's cast of indigenous people seem authentic (which might say more about the reader than the writer) and the injustice of their choice - live pigeonholed on a reserve or suffer indignity in the city- is resonant and moving.
The plot is a Kafkaesque masterpiece of biased institutions, perverse or crooked denizens, and absurd requirements - the employment office insisting on communicating by phone to Jaimie after he's told them he has no phone, the boss who fires Rita after raping her, the teacher who uses her distaste for Rita to condemn her in the court.
The stage directions are exacting and technically demanding - a precise combination of movement and lighting define whether a scene is in the past or present - or a dream - if a director bungles these elements, Rita is incomprehensible.
This is an ambitious play on a culturally sensitive issue - an apt representative of the works that follow.
Fortune and Men's Eyes - An important but uncomfortable read...I can't imagine making it through a staging. A prison drama set in a boy's reformatory, Fortune exposes a deeply repressed corner of Canada's cultural landscape: the cyclical and self - fulfilling world of youth corrections.
The dialogue's authenticity shines through the outdated slang and references; the characters are distinct and memorable. Smitty's metamorphosis from apprentice to master is as horrifying as it is expert. Queenie and Rocky offer opposite routes to the same, sad end - Rocky as the hardened, grim criminal and Queenie as the vivacious hedonist. Mona is a fascinating tragedy.
Stage direction is much looser than Rita Joe's and the aesthetic is realist...Fortune purports documentary instead of Rita's fluid dream/memory state.
It's unfortunate that the subject matter of Fortune keeps it out of classrooms. It has the historical distinction of being the first Canadian national play to find success globally (even when it was largely spurned locally) and it's no surprise. Fortune is wonderfully efficient in staging and as poetic in its vulgarity as David Mamet or Kevin Smith.
Les Belles-Soeurs - Unforgettable and awesome in many of the same ways as Fortune: the story of Germaine's 'lottery' win - and the explosion of jealousy and recrimination that it ignites in her family and friends- reveals the sick realities of life in working-class Quebec. Where Tremblay's masterpiece exceeds its predecessors is in its use of magical realism and comedy to pillory sacred institutions and expose hypocrisy in the everyday.
The surreal choral odes, musical numbers, and Brechtian winking at the audience provide bright relief from an otherwise pessimistic story. Wasserman correctly identifies Belles as a tragicomedy: we laugh with the characters while we cry for them.
Wasserman's introduction is excellent and clearly explains the cultural significance of Belles for both French and English Canada. The history (and biography) is just as dramatic as the play itself.
Creeps - Like Fortune, a riveting read that promises an uncomfortable performance. The realist depiction of 'spastic ' characters presents a daunting challenge to actors and audience. Thoroughly disenfranchised, the characters live in a world without hope, even for the merest shred of dignity or independence. The condescension, marginalization, and infantilization they suffer is laid bare in simple, clear dialogue (with a few absurdist asides) which indicates beyond doubt who the real creeps are.
Leaving Home - A Maritime-diaspora riff on King Lear. Brothers Bill and Ben Mercer are both preparing to leave the family home...one in matrimony and the other to escape his overbearing father, Jacob. As Bill prepares for his shotgun-wedding to Kathy, whose family is linked to the Mercers already, old grudges and long-simmering rivalries rise to the surface. Jacob's larger-than-life personality ignites a series of confrontations that end in tragedy for some and comedy for others.
David French crafts his characters with painstaking precision and, even on the page, there is an organic, vibrant life to them. The 'Newfie' immigrants -Jacob, his wife Mary, and Minnie - are vivacious, extroverted personalities while their kids are subdued and bland by comparison (although Kathy has a bit of dark turn in the second act).
The themes of generational strife, conflict, and coming-of-age are well explored and make the play feel wholly current, despite being rooted in time and place. The aesthetic is the most totally realist in the collection so far...the unities of time and place are enforced and there are no magical/internal asides, flashbacks, or dream sequences.
Leaving Home reads like a timeless performer's play. It's characters are complex of mind and simple of heart. Jacob's game of, 'who loves me best' rivals Lear's and is completely worth reading and seeing.
1837: The Farmers' Revolt - the production journal in the prologue is a fascinating document of both the collective creation processes and the clash between the incumbent British/American companies and the emergent mid-size independent theatres in Toronto. It seems, in this case, that life mirrored art.
Act 1 is a strong anthology that outlines the grievances, frustrated hopes, and stymied ambitions of the common folk of Upper Canada. A few key, historical characters are introduced: William Lyon Mackenzie, Sir Francis Bond Head, Robert Davis and so on...but no sense of an emerging protagonist. I'm not sure that's a problem - as of the end of act one, the breadth of characters and depth of world building make it easy for a reader (and probably an audience too..) to insert themselves into the narrative...one which has hardly changed in nearly 200 years. The institutional nepotism, corruption, and elitism of the colony are all too recognizable in today's Ontario making this piece more topical than ever.
Act 2 is an edge-of-your-seat rush that masterfully binds the disparate threads of Act 1 into a shocking tragedy. The montage that encompasses the battle and its heartbreaking fallout are evocative, minimalist masterpieces. 1837 shines a light on a piece of our local history that is all but redacted nationally. An absolute masterpiece.
Walsh - A more focused, personal history drama, Sharon Pollock's tense Mountie play evokes a living, breathing Canadian West - a cosmopolitan crossroads of French, English, American, Native, Metis, Scottish, and Irish characters. Without getting into the detailed analysis this play deserves, it is safe to say that this story is timely, present, and revealing. Top 3.
The St. Nicholas Hotel - Fascinating story but almost incomprehensible on the page. The cast is unwieldy in it's size and the stage direction left me confused about who mattered and who didn't. There's a stream of consciousness quality to the writing that is interesting and the history that the play springs from is some of the most interesting available: scapegoat-ing, political polarization, mob mentality, grudges, murder...rich material. I found reading it to be a slog but I think I'd still go out of my way to see it.
The pieces of a great play are in here...I just can't see how they fit together on the page.
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