Results tagged “judiththompson”

May 26 marked the fortieth anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's famous Montreal Bed-In, the site of the recording of "Give Peace a Chance." Over in the M-Dot, the Musée des beaux arts has been holding a popular exhibit about what may have been the world's most famous sleepover. Closer to home, draft89 Theatre Collective has been mounting The John/Yoko Bed Piece at the Theatre Centre, which dramatizes the event.

A critic once famously said of seminal Canadian playwright Judith Thompson that it was typical of her to include a gang-rape in one of her plays when only a rape was necessary. It's a flip and condescending remark about one of our country's most respected playwrights; at the same time, Thompson's plays are known for their dramatization of extremely unpleasant, if realistic, incidents. Recently, Thompson's writing has turned political with her critically-acclaimed Palace of the End, probably the writer's strongest work to date. But theatre company Staged and Confused are reaching way back into Thompson's repertoire with their production of The Crackwalker, currently playing at Passe Muraille. It's Thompson's very first play, and it's certainly not without its share of extremely unpleasant incidents.

Palace of the End, Judith Thompson's most recent play, is not only her most political work, it is also her best. As most auditioning actors in this country have discovered, Thompson's greatest strength has always been her monologues, and in this piece, she uses that strength to its full advantage. In fact, she dispenses with character interaction altogether and breaks her show into three long monologues, each spoken by someone who has been greatly affected by the political situation in Iraq from Saddam's rise to power to the present. Interestingly, while Thompson has created the text for the show, she has not created fictional characters. Though they are not credited as such in the program, the following becomes clear: Maev Beaty's "American Soldier" is none other than Abu Ghraib's favourite dishonourable dischargee, Private Lynndie England; Julian Richings' "British Microbiologist and Weapons Inspector" is WMD whistle-blower and Thom Yorke muse David Kelly; Arsinée Khanjian's "Iraqi Mother" is the less notorious Nehrjas al-Saffarh, a woman who was tortured along with her children during Saddam's reign and died in the first Gulf War.