Modern Canadian Plays

I don't see how a play can be Canadian. I don't think there are any plays that you could call strictly Canadian...What does that phrase mean? Now, thirty-three years after Canadian directors spoke their minds, or rather shrugged their shoulders at the seeming hopelessness of de-colonizing Canadian theatre, this fourth edition of the 'classic' Modern Canadian Plays sets out for us an even broader range of plays than previous editions, outlining a Canadian drama-scene that's far from colonial, inert, middle-class, or middle-aged. Spanning the years from 1967 to 1997 this anthology will likely continue to be the standard anthology for Canadian drama - and not without good reason. Edited by Jerry Wasserman - a professor at the University of British Columbia, theatre critic for CBC, and one of Vancouver's most recurring (and memorable) faces on television - Volume I still contains plays such as George Ryga's seminal and highly political The Ecstasy of Rita Joe (first performed in 1967 it was described as a "cicatrice "of Canadian society that "showed the bleeding flesh beneath"), as well as Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-Soeurs (one of the most critically acclaimed plays in Canada translated from the original, controversial, joual). But more to the point, this edition of Volume I carries with it an even more distinct flavour of adventurousness in its juxtaposition of plays that are strikingly, even wildly, various plays that can only be said to cohere around the difficulty of amorphous notions like social justice, cultural belonging, a collective past. The plays in this fourth edition of Modern Canadian Plays: Volume I date from 1967 to 1986; they are: The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga; Fortune and Men's Eyes by John HerberT; Les Belles-Soeurs by Michel Tremblay; KLeaving Home by David French, 1837; The Farmer's Revolt by Rick Salutin and Theatre Passe Muraille; The St. Nicholas Hotel by James Reaney; Zastrozzi by George F. Walker; Billy Bishop Goes to War by John Gray with Eric Peterson; Balconville by David Fennario; Doc by Sharon Pollock; Drag Queens on Trial by Sky Gilbert; The Occupation of Heather Rose by Wendy Lill. Also available from Talonbooks: Modern Canadian Plays: Volume II. "Wasserman's introduction gives the best short outline I know of the development of the Canadian theatre." --Modern Drama.Wasserman, Jerry is the author of 'Modern Canadian Plays ', published 2000 under ISBN 9780889224360 and ISBN 0889224366.