Book review: "The Josephine Knot" by Meg Braem

 

The Josephine Knot is one of the 2018 releases by Playwrights Canada Press, and I received a copy of this play in exchange for a free and honest review.

Synopsys

The author of Blood: A Scientific Romance is back with a story in which a family must pack up a matriarch’s things while unpacking the past and untangling the present.

After Samantha’s baba dies, her fractured family is summoned to pick through the house full of belongings and trash, leaving taped notes on whatever they want to take. Between old napkins, a closet full of ketchup packets, and a freezer full of rotting meat are gems like a grandfather clock and plastic deer statuettes that hold more sentiment. While her father David sifts through his own memories, all Samantha wants is to find a simple object that could represent her place in the family. When other family members arrive, tug of wars and passive-aggressive conversations commence. In a house full of junk and sadness, it comes down to Samantha and David to find a new way to fit together.

Review

A bit funny and a bit chilling, The Josephine Knot is the perfect blend of both - living up to its title to a T. Unlike with some plays and short fiction, with which I struggle to envision everything happening as it would on stage, I had no such problems with The Josephine Knot - it sucked me in from the very beginning, and there was a reason for that.

Reading this play, I felt as if I was reading about my own family’s story. The similarities are so uncanny that I felt almost creeped out by it. My name may not be Samantha, and my dad is not David, but my grandma was undoubtedly the baba from the story. With an apartment full of porcelain figurines, with the dubious cooking habits and a bad leg, my baba was as much of tour de force as Samantha’s grandmother. And as the character in the play, she was often at the heart of the family drama, leaving, even in her passing, some unresolved issues and a property to be divided among family members.

I was both fascinated and petrified by the fact that the playwright, Meg Braem, unknowingly, managed to perfectly capture the story of my dad’s family. However, obviously, many family dramas are similar, and I do not claim any privilege rights to a grandmother named Olga.

I can find no faults with The Josephine Knot. Reviewing it almost feels as if I am trying to pass judgement onto my own family. The blend of dark humour in the face of family drama, macabre details, heartbreaking revelations - you need to read the play to understand the whirlpool of emotions that I experienced when reading the play. It is very true to life, lively, and inspirational, in spite of the topic of death.

If I am ever someone important enough to warrant a biography written about me, I would like Meg Braem to do that. She, apparently, knows what she is doing.

About author

Meg Braem’s plays have won the Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama at the Alberta Literary Awards and the Alberta Playwriting Competition, and Blood: A Scientific Romance was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. Her work has been presented at the Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Lunchbox Theatre, the Belfry Theatre, Sage Theatre, Sparrow & Finch Theatre, Theatre Transit, Atomic Vaudeville, and Intrepid Theatre. She is a past member of the Citadel Playwrights Forum and was a playwright-in-residence at Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. Her next book, Feminist Resistance: A Graphic Approach (co-authored with Norah Bowman and Domique Hui), will be published by University of Toronto Press in 2019. Meg currently divides her time between Edmonton as the Lee Playwright in Residence at the University of Alberta and Calgary as the co-director of the Alberta Theatre Projects Playwrights Unit.

Rating: 4.5 stars

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Links

• https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39789091-the-josephine-knot
• https://www.playwrightscanada.com/index.php/the-josephine-knot.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrick_bend

Book review: "This Is How We Got Here" by Keith Barker

 

I received a copy of "This is How We Got Here" from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for a free and honest review. I requested it based on the description and, let’s be honest, the cover.

Description

It’s been a year since Paul and Lucille’s son Craig committed suicide, and their once-solid family bonds are starting to break down. While the now-separated couple tries to honour their son, Lucille’s sister Liset and her husband Jim refuse to discuss their nephew. The ties that keep the four together as sisters, best friends, and spouses are strained by grief and guilt… until a visit from a fox changes everything.

About author

Keith Barker is a Métis artist from Northwestern Ontario. A graduate of the George Brown Theatre School, he has worked professionally as an actor, playwright, and director for the past sixteen years. He is a recipient of the SATAward for Excellence in Playwriting and the Yukon Arts Audience Award for Best Art for Social Change for his play The

Hours That Remain. He has served as a theatre program officer at the Canada Council for the Arts, and is currently the artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto.

Review

I was lucky enough, not only to read the copy "This is How We Got Here"  but also listen to Keith Barker read excerpts from it at Playwrights Canada Press Fall Launch party and the readings as part of Native Earth’s Weesageechak Begins to Dance festival in November of 2017. Keith’s voice as he read the dialogues was so perfect and natural for the story that I kept hearing his voice in my head as I read the play.

Even before starting "This is How We Got Here", I knew that this play would be a hard one to swallow. The premise of the story is tragic, more so, since Keith Barker had to deal with a similar tragedy in his family and some of the situations were drawn from his own experiences.

This is a story about a close-knit family which starts to fall apart as some of them refuse to acknowledge and deal with the loss and others lose themselves in it. "This is How We Got Here" is full of raw and unapologetic dialogues between couples, friends and siblings, as they all try to make sense of what their lives should be. They lash out at each other in the way that only the closest people can - pushing the buttons almost to the point of no return with the words that hurt the most.

The writing in "This is How We Got Here" is so realistic and true to life that anyone can relate to the story regardless of whether they experienced a profound loss or not. You can take any line from the play, and I am sure you have either said it yourself or had it said to you. In spite of the grievous theme of the plot, I can see myself reading this play over and over.

The introduction of a fox into the plot was rather surprising as I did not expect it to be relevant at all. It can be viewed as either an aspect of magical realism in the play or just the struggles of an unravelling mind of Lucille. I am a bit torn as I like both ideas equally, so I’d rather stay in the dark as what was the actual intention of the author.

I don’t know how to recommend "This is How We Got Here" well enough without making it sound as if it is only about grief. Yes, it is the story of grief, and loss, and mental health, and, perhaps, even bullying, and about broken families, and, yes, it will make you cry. But it is also the story of hope and trying to rebuild what is broken. It was very much worth your time.

I am very grateful to Playwrights Canada Press for once again giving me an opportunity to read and review one of their brilliant plays.

Rating: 4.5 stars

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Links:

• https://www.playwrightscanada.com/index.php/this-is-how-we-got-here.html

Book review: “Black Dog: 4 vs the wrld” by Matthew Heiti

 

I received a copy of the play “Black Dog: 4 vs the wrld” from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for a free and honest review.

If you have been reading my reviews for awhile, you know that I love reading plays. I love reading notes on scripts. I love reading notes on staging. I love it, even if I don‘t get an opportunity to watch the play on stage, as it is in this case. “Black Dog: 4 vs the wrld” by Matthew Heiti was commissioned by Sudbury Theatre Centre and premiered there in April 2013.

The moment I read the synopsis of this play, I knew immediately that I had to read it.

Synopsis:

The Breakfast Club meets Shirley Jackson in a fusion of live theatre and technology that tells a darkly comic but hopeful story of found teenage outsiders struggling with death, depression and the shadow of a black dog.

The topic of mental health is prevailing in the play. Not only the play opens with the honestly shocking statistics regarding mental health and suicide rates in Ontario and in the world, but the performance itself consistently keeps reminding the audience of the subject matter.

I will allow myself to include the quote from the "notes on the text":

“More than ever, there is the tendency in our Wikipedia-obsessed society to self-diagnose and slap easy labels on people. It’s in our language - we say. “He’s a schizophrenic”, when we should say “He is a person with schizophrenia.”

It can’t be more true, as we often hear our peers and friends throw around such phrases as “I clean all the time. I am so OCD about it”, or “This is giving me anxiety”, or “I am so depressed about it”. Even though, all of those feelings and emotions might be valid and true for the speaker, the easy way of appropriating such labels is detrimental for the people who truly suffer from mental illnesses or the representation of their stories.

The staging notes of “Black Dog” captivated me even before I got to the script itself. The play uses technology and live twitter feed as part of the performance, and the audience is encouraged to use their cellphones - something that is never the case in live theatre.

The play kept me on my toes throughout. I read it almost in one go while commuting on a bus (and, yes, I almost did miss my stop in a very typical booknerd way). I remember walking through the quiet streets of Lakeshore Boulevard and thinking that one of those houses could be the home of One and Two. Or, perhaps, Four. That behind those walls there might be someone like one of those teenagers, suffering and alone, unheard.

The play is fast-paced with a staccato dialogues and the increasing crescendo of anxiety. You can tell that something bad is about to happen. That the black dog is getting closer and is about to pounce. The ending came, and I was left with the feeling of mounting depression. It was too real and in some ways too close home to brush off as a piece of fiction. I found it hard to step away from the characters and the plot and found my thoughts return to both again and again in the following days.

Five: [...] These are the things I keep to myself because they make me different. / And different’s just one more word for alone.

Is the plot completely original? No, we have seen it done in many ways many times before. Was it meant to be original? No. (Well, yes, but also no.)

As Matthew in the beginning, he tried to create those characters as representatives of a whole spectrum of mental health and illnesses. Numbers instead of names, symptoms of multiple disorders instead of labels. Those kids are like countless nameless victims of a spreading plague - unique and faceless at the same time. This play, like many other stories that touch upon the subject, is meant to make you uncomfortable and aware of those who suffer. I can only applaud the author.

Personal rating: 5 stars

Buy “Black Dog: 4 vs the wrld” by Matthew Heiti"

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Book Review: Long Story Short: An Anthology of (Mostly) 10-Minute Plays

 

I was provided a copy of this anthology by Playwrights Canada Press in exchange of a free and honest review.

“Long Story Short” is an anthology of short plays by Canadian playwrights of diverse backgrounds. The introduction by Rebecca Burton gives insight into how she picked the plays and on the background of the authors. Selected plays are intended to appeal to a variety of readers and variety of tastes as they range in genres from satire and comedy to absurdist and dystopian and encompass an array of topics from coming of age, love, relationships, race, gender norms, and death. Every read is bound to find something to their taste.

I have never had a pleasure of reading anything so diverse in genre and style. I found this idea extremely thrilling: an anthology of plays without one topic or common genre or one idea that would bind all of those stories together. With only one common ground of (relatively) short length, they are like mismatched beads, glass and seashells on a single thread. With so many of authors of different backgrounds involved, it is astounding how all of those talents shine individually as well as together.

I fell in love with this anthology almost from the very beginning. I did have a couple of instances when I was left confused or detached after finishing the play, however, the overwhelming majority of works left me reeling with emotions and thoughts. I couldn’t wait to review this anthology, only to be left stumped about how to approach something so different.

Eventually, I decided to do an overall review and provide a quick synopsis and rating for each play as they all deserve a mention.

The Book of Daniel by Lawrence Aronovitch

Summary: A man recalls his schooldays at a Jewish school.

Rating: 3 stars

The Baited Blade by David Belke

Summary: A young movie star comes to a veteran actor to receive a lesson in swordsmanship. Dark secrets are revealed.

Rating: 5 stars

Green Dating by Chantal Bilodeau

Summary: A teenage girl has very specific environmental ideas about what she wants in a man.

Rating: 4 stars

Sisters by Per Brask

Summary: A homage to Chekhov’s Three Sisters

Rating: 3 stars

Cook by David James Brock

Summary: The private cook of a demanding family interviews a boy who wants to be their next meal.

Rating: 4 stars

The Auction by Trina Davies

Summary: A married couple fights over the junk that the husband keeps buying.

Rating: 5 stars

Air Apparent by Sandra Dempsey

Summary: Aisling struggles with the aftermath of 9/11

Rating: 4 stars

Summer’s End by Francine Dick

Summary: Three sisters inherit the family cottage but one of them has quite different plans for it.

Rating: 4 stars

Pee & Qs by Josh Downing

Summary: Three men find themselves in an awkward situation as they face the workplace washroom rules.

Rating: 4 stars

The Prisoner by Jennifer Fawcett

Summary: In an unnamed country, a widow comes to prison to ask a guard about what happened to her husband and warn him about his fate.

Rating: 4 stars

This Isn't Toronto by Catherine Frid

Summary: An adult daughter and her mother have a conversation.

Rating: 3 stars

Troupe by Ron Fromstein

Summary: Four women attend the hundred and tenth meeting of Khodoriv Dance Collective

Rating: 2 stars

Brother, Brother by Meghan Greeley

Summary: A little girl with speech impairment needs to learn important words and asks an older boy to help her.

Rating: 4 stars

It’s Going To Be a Bright by Matthew Heiti

Summary: Two people break up and break up again. And again.

Rating: 4 stars

Garbed in Flesh by Arthur Holden

Summary: An old sexual offender is interrogated by a young detective and is confronted by his wife.

Rating: 3 stars

A Recipe for Tomato Butter by Florence Gibson MacDonald

Summary: A sixty-year-old woman contemplates God, tomatoes, 9/11 and her neighbours.

Rating: 4 stars

The Living Library by Linda McCready

Summary: A young woman borrows “a human book” from the library.

Rating: 3 stars

Flesh Offerings by Yvette Nolan

Summary: A Cree/Metis woman in Wild West show invites you to her performance.

Rating: 3 stars

The Only Good Indian by Jivesh Parasram

Summary: a standoff between a suicide bomber and a police officer

Rating: 5 stars

A Friend for Life by Talia Pura

Summary: Kristy is heartbroken, because her boyfriend came out as gay and dumped her.

Rating: 3 stars

An Ordinary Guy by Ann Snead

Summary: Jeff is an ordinary guy with an unusual attachment to tomatoes

Rating: 5 stars

Say the Words by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

Summary: Everything you have heard about feminists is totally true.

Rating: 5 stars

Steps by Jose Teodoro

Summary: People in formal clothes fret and dance to Miles Davis “Flamenco Sketches”

Rating: 4 stars

Nancy by Michael Wilmot

Summary: A boy comes across an elderly gentleman sitting in the park.

Rating: 4 stars

Burusera by Laura Mullen and Chris Tolley

Summary:  Used underwear for sale.

Rating: 4 stars

I think all of my most favourite plays involved death or murder in one way or another (oops) but I enjoyed all of the plays for their diversity and unique taken on various facets of humanity, from ugly to touching.

I am incredibly grateful to Playwrights Canada Press for providing me with the copy of this anthology for review. I will be definitely re-reading this one more than once. Overall rating: 4.5 stars

Book/Play review: The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan (script + National Theatre)

 

If you have been following me for some time, you probably already know that I go to see every and each NT Live broadcast, time permitting. I saw Helen McCrory in both Medea and The Last of the Haussmans and as a huge fan of The Three Musketeers in general I instantly became a fan of Tom Burke’s Athos in BBC The Musketeers. Needless to say, when I found out that both of those actors were going to be on stage at National Theatre, I knew that I would be seeing it for sure. I purchased tickets for both broadcasts (they were a week or so apart, I believe) and set on reading the play beforehand.

Sadly, I failed at my plan to read the play before watching it as it turned out to be a bit difficult to find a new edition in local stores, and by the time I got my copy from BookDepository, I was already otherwise engaged.

I read the script months later after watching the play and, to be honest, I don’t regret it, as it allowed me to process my thoughts and form my opinions, and reading the script later only enhanced the experience. National Theatre production follows the script almost to the point, with the exception of few details, so unless mentioned otherwise my review is applicable to both.

From NT Live website:

Helen McCrory (Medea and The Last of the Haussmans at the National Theatre, Penny Dreadful, Peaky Blinders) returns to the National Theatre in Terence Rattigan’s devastating masterpiece, playing one of the greatest female roles in contemporary drama. Tom Burke (War and Peace, The Musketeers) also features in Carrie Cracknell’s critically acclaimed new production.

A flat in Ladbroke Grove, West London. 1952.

When Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge begins to emerge.

With it comes a portrait of need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Behind the fragile veneer of post-war civility burns a brutal sense of loss and longing.

I think this play has one of the most dramatic openings I have ever seen. The play opens with the aftermath of Hester’s attempted suicide, but at first we do not know what is happening and why she did what she did, when she is found. The depth of her despair is unraveled throughout the play. Hester is lost and trapped between the encompassing passion towards Freddie and the realization that he may never love her as much as she loves him. Both strong and weak, Hester as portrayed by Helen McCrory is a beautiful disaster to watch. Hester is desperate and her desperation drives Freddie away. He is scared, but also lost, as after the war he knows naught what to do with himself. ‘We will be death to each other’ is his excuse for leaving Hester. But, perhaps, it is what might help her rise up from the ashes at the end.

In spite of a rather heavy topic of depression, mental health and deep desire, the play is richly peppered with sarcastic remarks and witticisms, that make the play very addicting. I watched it twice and would watch it again in a heartbeat, as this production was simply amazing. What adds to the plot’s already dark beginning is the fact that Rattigan wanted his play to specifically start with the suicide by the fireplace, as it was the way his former lover had ended his life. It is said that unable to write openly about his relationship, Rattigan wrote it coded in this play.

I don’t think I will ever be able to imagine anyone else but Helen McCrory as Hester. She was stunning as Hester, her desperation and addiction to Freddie portrayed with incredible rawness on stage. Hester is convinced that there is nothing for her beyond this, until she is somewhat inspired by the former doctor who is tending to her after the suicide attempt. Every character in this play is fascinating in their own way, from the neighbours to Hester’s ‘not so ex’ husband, Freddie and his friends, but Heter steals all attention. Helen McCrory is wonderful to watch, especially in the end, which is as open as it gets. I thought about it a lot, and I personally like to see it as a beginning not an end for her character.

It is a wonderful, albeit dark play, and if you are looking for a bit of heartbreak mixed with a good doze of British sarcasm - I highly recommend you watch or read this play. My copy of this script is as heavily tabbed and bookmarked as my Oscar Wilde plays. Terrence might end up being my other favourite playwright of all time.

Play script: 5 stars

Play by National Theatre: 5 stars

Sources:

• http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/56769-the-deep-blue-sea

Book/Play review: Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen + National Theatre Live

This is going to be the review for both the script and National Theatre Live production, as there are some certain differences to Hedda’s character, which I found really interesting. Beware of plot spoilers ahead.

“Hedda Gabler” is a four act play written by the norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in 1890. The edition that I read was translated by Jens Arup and the introduction written by James McFarlane (Oxford World’s Classics). The introduction gives us a brief synopsis of Ibsen’s life and work.

The play starts on the morning after Hedda and her husband, Jorgen Tesman, arrived from their six months long honeymoon. Tesman holds a University Fellowship in cultural history and used the opportunity of their honeymoon to do his research, which Hedda finds incredibly boring and ridiculous. They are visited by Tesman’s aunt, who lives nearby and takes care of her seriously ill sister. The next visitor is Mrs. Elvested who brings the rumour of Ejlert Lovborg being back in town. There is also a rumour, brought by Tesman’s friend, a judge named Mr. Black, that Lovborg is going to apply for the same position in University as Tesman and that his latest book was very successful. All of this prompts a series of events that snowball to a climatic ending.

“Hedda Gabler” is a very interesting play with multiple layers. Written in the 19th century, it shows us a character of Hedda who is quite obviously ahead of her time. Ibsen even intentionally titled the play with Hedda’s maiden name as if to show that she was not just her husband’s wife. Hedda is smart and strong-willed, she is hungry for knowledge and dominance - things that were only available to men in that time. She was brought up by her father, the general, and is said to have learnt to ride a horse and fire a gun - as a matter of fact, she owns a pair of pistols that play a prominent role in the play. She despises any sign of weakness, expressed by either a man or a woman. There are mentions of her pregnancy throughout the play, but she ignores or diverts the attention whenever the subject is brought up, which made me think that she viewed her pregnancy as yet another boundary of the marriage and the weakness.

Hedda can be quite cruel and unsympathetic towards people in her quest to overpower them, and Ibsen even said that the play is “the study in demonic”, which made me think at the very beginning that Hedda exhibits signs of psychopathy. It is, obviously, almost impossible to prove, and I think it would be safe to assume that Hedda was suffering from some sort of mental illness, as a result of her life.

Hedda is trapped by the society norms and expectations. She married Tesman because it was expected of her. She doesn’t love him, she doesn’t care about his research, but she does care about appearances and social status. She has high expectations for his potential promotion at University, as that would bring money and status, and that is why the moment that promotion is threatened, she springs into action. Hedda does all she can to protect herself and her status, however, it still leads to her downfall, as she is unable to break away from the society’s rules. She can’t leave her husband, she has no way of making money or supporting herself. In a way, she even envies Mrs. Elvested her simple courage to leave her husband for Lovborg. At the end, she takes her own life as her only way of escape.

I found the way Hedda manipulates people incredibly fascinating. She is a true mastermind in this play, although she does fall prey to Mr. Black. In many ways, “Hedda Gabler” is a feminist play as it shows a woman struggling to be on the same level as men. Since it was set in the 19th century, it is obvious, that the root of all her troubles is the time and society itself. That is why I was incredibly excited to learn that National Theatre production moved the time of the play to contemporary age.

If we take Hedda out of the 19th century and the boundaries that existed there, would she still exhibit the same internal conflict? Would she be still trapped? How different would she be? Those were the questions that kept running through my head.

This new version of the play was written by Patrick Marber. He quite masterfully adapted the script, changing some of the settings and dialogues to fit the modern time. Hedda is played by Ruth Wilson, who brings both fierceness and vulnerability to her character.

Why did modern Hedda marry Tesman? She didn’t have to. But she did because she felt that she was getting old. Was she really as trapped as she thought she was? Because she could have left her husband, she could have divorced him, she could have started a new life. So, why?

I think, that the difference between Ibsen’s and Marber’s Hedda lies in the fact that while the former is trapped by society - something that she unable to change, the latter is trapped in her own mind. Modern Hedda is brilliant and beautiful but she is also lost and unable to find her way out. Why? It is hard to say as we don’t get any glimpses into her childhood. However, it is clear that there are certain, probably self-imposed, rules, that Hedda has to abide by. And that makes me believe that Hedda is plagued by mental illness more so in the modern version than the original play. I found both the script and the NT production to be equally fascinating, but for me those were two different Heddas: one trapped by society and another by herself.

Was Hedda a demon, who gave a recovering alcoholic a drink and then a gun to “do it beautifully”? Or was she a coward with “no talent for life”, who couldn’t break the chains of marriage and society? I believe that she can be viewed as both and none at the same time. Hedda Gabler is a unique character, who defies all expectations.

Sources:

• Ibsen, Henrik. Four Major Plays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Hedda Gabler - National Theatre Live. March 26, 2017. http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/59687-hedda-gabler

Book review: Waiting Room by Diane Flacks (script)

"Waiting Room" is a two-act play by a Canadian playwright Diane Flacks. It is a fictional story which was, nevertheless, inspired by the author’s own experience at SickKids Hospital.

At the centre of the play we have two pairs: Chrissie and Jeremy, young parents, whose baby daughter is suffering from a brain tumour, and Dr. Andre Malloy and his assistant Melissa De Angelo, who are both brilliant and competent but not flawless.

Chrissie and Jeremy both struggle with their daughter’s illness in their own ways, alternating between antagonizing and supporting each other. They form uncommon friendships with other parents who visit the hospital as well as medical staff. They spend so much time in the hospital waiting room that they have nicknames for nurses and doctors.

Dr. Malloy is not known for his pleasant bedside manner but he is a brilliant and successful surgeon, who unexpectedly finds himself facing his own medical dilemma. He is god-like and uncompromising, much like other similar characters in medical dramas, however, he is brought back to earth and is forced to face his own mortality.

I was hooked by the writing from the very beginning. As someone who is both personally familiar with doctors and their peculiar sense of humour as well as cancer treatment, I found this play very true to life. The author’s introductory notes to characters are poignant and made me long to see this play on stage. “Waiting Room” is gripping and heartbreaking as well as heartwarming at times, as it examines humanity and ethics in life and death situations. Although the play deals with terminal disease and is hard to read - let’s be honest here - it is so well-written, that I did not feel crushed by the story as much as I had expected to be.

However, if there was one thing that I could change about it, it would have been the epilogue. Even though I do understand why the epilogue was written the way it was written, I still liked Scene 15 as the ending for the play way more.

I have received a copy of this play from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange of a free and honest review.

Personal rating: 5 stars

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Book review: Watching Glory Die by Judith Thompson

"Watching Glory Die" is one act play written by a Canadian playwright Judith Thompson, who was inspired by the tragic death of nineteen year-old Ashley Smith. Ashley Smith died of self-inflicted strangulation, while being on a suicide watch at Grand Valley Institution for Women. Her death caused many questions and resulted in a legal inquest and criminal negligence charges against the warden and deputy warden. The trial stretched for several years and eventually her death was ruled as a homicide.

The play portrays the injustice and mistreatment of women, and more so the treatment of mentally ill inmates, within the judicial system. The story is delivered from three women’s perspective: a teenaged inmate Grace, who suffers from hallucinations; her adoptive mother Rosellen; and a working-class guard Gail.

The cruelty and injustice of everything that Glory is going through is truly jarring to read. Just like Ashley Smith, Glory is initially arrested and imprisoned at the age of fourteen for throwing an apple at the postman. She is systematically abused by the guards, who take her every action as a reason to charge her again and again, increasing her sentence time. Glory spent years in prison and by the time the play takes place, she has been there for five years and is now truly lost in her hallucinations. She talks incoherently, keeps envisioning her birth mother as a crocodile who is going to come and drag her into a swamp; and has self-harm tendencies which eventually lead to her death.

The script is less than fifty pages long, but I found even those very hard to read. The injustice of everything that is happening, not only against Glory, but also other women in the play, is hard to swallow, especially since it is not fiction, but reality. It is very powerful play both for its language and its topic, and I encourage you to read it, as it brings the awareness to the treatment of women and mentally ill inmates in prisons. In the words of Gail: “This whole place is fucking crazy. Like the world turned upside down.”

It is definitely not the kind of play that would keep you guessing about the ending or that you would want to read over and over again, but it is very important as it serves as a reminder of the issues that still exist in the correctional system.

*I have received the copy of this play from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange of a free and honest review.

Personal rating: 4 stars

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Smith_inquest
• http://globalnews.ca/news/1527666/prison-officials-wont-reveal-ashley-smith-details-7-years-after-her-death/
• https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2011-03-tmdw/index-en.aspx

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Book review: Pontypool by Tony Burgess

I have an unfortunate habit of buying books on a whim, simply because they remind of something else: another book, a TV show, or maybe there is just THAT feeling that I will like this book. Heavens know how many times I was mistaken. Especially, since I am plagued by a chronic aversion to summaries and back cover blurbs. (Meaning, most of the time I have no idea what the book is about until I start reading it. Isn’t it fun? Trying to justify a purchase without reading a book is my personal nightmare.)

I was browsing Arts & Letters section at Indigo, wondering if I might by some chance find anything by Terence Rattigan (even though I knew perfectly well that there were no plays in stock - I am an eternal optimist), when I came across this little play. The name caught my eye for an obvious connection with the author of  A Clockwork Orange, but when I looked at the cover my first thought was - “It is so Welcome to Night Vale - esque!”.

I purchased Pontypool after only briefly skimming the back cover (and being appalled at the price of almost $18 for a 50 paged book). I admit that I probably would have left it on the shelf if I hadn’t a bit of money left on my gift certificate. Therefore, I left the store with Pontypool, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard and a dotted Leuchtturm notebook.

What was rather unusual about this purchase was that I, the procrastinator of procrastinators, read Pontypool on the same day of purchase. Hooray!

Here is a bit of a back story.

Pontypool is a script which was originally written for a radio drama and then was turned into a film script only to be eventually produced on theatre stage. It is based on the novel called "Pontypool Changes Everything" which is book 2 in The Pontypool Trilogy. (And ain’t that confusing!) However, I believe you can read the script without really missing out on anything from the trilogy.

The copy that I got was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015.Tony Burgess is a Toronto born Canadian author and screenwriter. Which made me rather excited as I feel as if I don’t read enough of Canadian authors.

Pontypool is set in a small rural town, somewhere in Ontario. The whole story takes place in a radio show studio, which immediately reminded me of Welcome To Night Vale podcast series. The host of the show, Grant Mazzy, may not be Cecil, but the events that develop in that radio station are both unpredictable and weird, and, let’s be honest, a touch scary. We are talking apocalypsis type of scary here, folks.

I don’t to say anything else because it is easy to spoil the plot twist (yes, there is a twist), but I will just quote one sentence from the very first page: “Consider the fateful morning Ms. Colette Piscine swerves her car to miss a cat as she goes across a bridge and has to get fished, alive and shivering, out from the drink.”

And if this doesn’t make you want to read this little, bizarre script, then just look at the cover. Isn’t it just very Lovecraftian?

Personal rating: 4.5 stars

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Burgess_(author)
• http://www.playwrightscanada.com/index.php/pontypool.html

More of my book reviews

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Allow me to talk about Harry Potter series first.

Unlike many people who are in their (late) twenties now, I discovered Harry Potter books when first 3 or 4 books were already out. I remember hearing all about Harry Potter books but not really getting the hype. I was 23 years old and picked up "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone" only after my manager, who was 10 years my senior, told me that had read it and loved it.

I read it and fell in love with it too, naturally.

But for me Harry Potter books have never been as life defying as for some people. I have always been an avid reader, ever since I was a kid. I have always loved fantasy: I grew up reading adult fantasy, and only as an adult, quite recently, started reading YA novels.

I have never been that much influenced by the series because I was already an adult and a reader and a fantasy lover before that. I loved the books and I loved the movies, but I have never been obsessed.

That is why even though I was excited by Pottermore, I never really explored it.

And that is why I was not really following any news regarding The Cursed Child. I did understand that it was a story in Harry Potter universe in a form of a play and will be released as a book. I was confused as to why it was so expensive and why they would want a script (something that is usually pretty short) published, etc. But I never expected it to be a real novel.

And here is where lies a problem for other readers: unless you are completely aware and okay to read a play - you will like it. Because it has all of our darling characters and familiar world, but IT IS NOT A NOVEL.

I stressed it out before but will do so again. And again. And again.

IT IS NOT A NOVEL.

It is a rather well written play. It is a script. It has enough production notes for a reader to recreate the actions in one's mind, but it is not written as a novel, therefore doesn't have the same character development and world building. It is not intended to be a novel. It is a whole different medium and is meant for producers and actors. Thus, it reads to some people as a very poorly written fanfiction instead of something written by J.K.Rowling.

And here comes problem number 2:

IT IS NOT WRITTEN BY J.K. ROWLING!

It is a script written by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne based on the world and the story by J.K. Rowling, but IT IS NOT ACTUALLY WRITTEN BY HER. She, obviously, wrote the story (the plot, the outline or an actually story - we do not know, but she came up with the idea) that the play was based on. But the actual script is not written by her. Naturally, the book has her name all over it, as you can imagine she holds all rights for anything that has to do with Harry Potter (which is reinforced by a very stern copyright warning inside the book). But having rights and having your name first on the book cover in big letters does not equal to being the person who wrote the script.

You see what I am saying?

A lot of people were misled, unintentionally, into thinking that this naturally would be a real, full fleshed novel. It looks like a book, so it must be a novel, right?

The hype surrounding the play, plus the plot that was kept as a mystery (I remember how many times Rowling had to post on Twitter over and over again how this was NOT a prequel), the fact that we were getting SOMETHING from Rowling again created this craze that completely blinded most of the readers.

You can't treat a script which was intended to be a script and nothing more, written by someone else, as a novel written by J.K.Rowling. It is not fair to the script and the work that was done by Tiffany and Thorne.

All those eager readers who anticipated something from Rowling herself let themselves down by overhyping this book. Believe me, I would have preferred to read a novel by her, or even a novella - heck, I'll take a short story - than get a quasi-HP novel written by someone else. But it is better to have something from hat universe than have nothing. Whether you want to accepted as canon is a whole different thing.

I personally liked the plot and I really enjoyed reading this script. I love plays and I could envision some parts - I bet they look amazing on stage! I know that I will never be able to see it live on stage, so for me reading the script was worth my time and money.

It was not perfect, but it was very good for a play. Lots of exposition, naturally, but lots of inside jokes too. At times it was hard to keep track of who is in the room and who left, but it was good. It was fun to revisit the world.

I don't want to talk about spoilers here. I thought about it and decided that the best thing to do is for you to go and read it and make your own opinion. So, I won't be doing a full spoilery review here.

Two things though (might be slightly spoilery, so if you'd rather know nothing - DO NOT READ FURTHER) that I want to mention.

One.

I disliked the fact that they turned Ron into a huge joke and kept him around for comic relief. This is not how Rowling wrote Ron (at times yes, but not always by far) and I expected him to grow into someone more stable and serious and not a tamed version of Mad Hatter.

Two.

I liked Scorpio way more than Albus, for many reasons. One of them being that Albus turned out to be in many ways like Harry, who was at times a bit of a prick, to be honest. His father James even more so. Albus has boldness and righteousness that was so typical for Potter (both James and Harry) at times. I did not like it, although I do understand that it is done for a reason and we do see character development for both Harry and Albus in this play.

Three (or two point five, if you like).

Queer baiting. If you read this book, you probably know what I am talking about it. It was mentioned by Jen Campbell in one of her videos and she didn't really say anything, so I can't claim being influenced into thinking this by her review. No, it is just something that is very clear once you get to the very end. (I still don't know why they wrote this the way they did.)

I liked the play. It is a very easy read and it can be pleasurable and fun if you leave your expectations of this being a novel before starting it. I can easily see myself reading it again and again. (And shipping Scorpio and Albus till the end of times.)

Because of some problems that I had with this script, I can't give it full 4 stars, so it is more of a 3.5-3.75 stars read for me.

Now I desperately want to re-read the whole series! Who is with me?