Drama

62 LETl'ERS IN CANADA 1986 ne vis qu'en des ~toiles que tu peux voir ouvre-leur ta fen~tre c'est egal elles t'embrasseront quant eUes seront pres detoi de tes feux de position dans Ie reel qui eclaireront quant c\ eux tOllS les oiseaux du monde ne vis que toute tapiss~e d'algues et du mouvement de la mer toute ravie ala lueur d'une chandelle qu'on namme Ie soleil moi les oiseaux pour toujours c'est sur ta gueule que je les aime jeunesse oblige (P 49) A la question rituelle sur la qualite de l'annee poetique que repondre? Certes, n'occultons pas les prises de position divergentes, les tensions et les conflits qui, chaque annee, modifient Ie paysage poetique. Cependant , qu'il s'agisse de la textualite, de la mort du genre poHique, de I'absence de releve, des formes et des contenus qui fa~onnent les recueils, il est vain de pretendre cerner, atous les douze mois, les enjeux d'un genre Iith?raire qui se moque des parametres qu'impose Ie calendrier. En ce sens, nous laissons la question rituelle en suspenso Drama JERRY WASSERMAN This past year's output in English drama was clearly dominated by Playwrights Canada. In its handsome new format the publishing arm of the Playwrights Union ofCanada gave us not only the greatest number of new plays but also the most interesting and important plays by both new and established writers. These included all three of the Governor General 's Award nominees in drama for 1986 - plays by Sharon Pollock, Allan Stratton, and Frank Moher - as well as the year's most commercially successful new work, Norm Foster's The Melville Boys. As far as many people were concerned, though, the premier publishing event in EnglishCanadian drama belonged to Coach House Press with its issuance of a volume of two plays by John Murrell. If the pickings on the whole were DRAMA 63 generally on the slim side, the appearance of what may well be the best work to date by Pollock and Murrell marks the year as noteworthy. The emergence of Foster and possibly Moher as playwrights of national importance is also cause for real cheer. Allan Stratton has been one of the most consistently successful writers of popular comedy in the Canadian theatre of the eighties, from Rexy!, a play of some substance, to the slightand sillyJoggers and Nurse Jane Goes to Hawaii. With Papers (Playwrights Canada, 92, $6.95) Stratton looks to split the difference, and he succeeds in part. A play within a play and then some, Papers is essentially a series of cliched situations manipulated cleverly and often wittily to give the impression of complexity without ever genuinely challenging its audience. It's a tale of middle-aged romance between a minor male novelist suffering from writer's block and a female academic whose blockages are all emotional. Myra the academic has arranged a residency at her university for Charles the novelist so she can interview him for the book she is writing on his work. The situation predictably gives rise to some amusing lit-crit satire and the sparks that enSue when the starchy, self-important critic rubs up against the cynical, self-absorbed artist. Inevitably, though, the human attractions overcome the professional differences - until the appearance of Bobbi Roy, the foxy young student who throws Myra into jealous apoplexy and inspires Charles to write a new novel, a roman aclefabout the three of them which finally resolves the complications, causing Charles and Myra to fall into each other's arms as the lights fade to black. Stratton is quite adept at working within the conventions of straightforward romantic comedy, as when Charles describes his relationship with his ex-wife: 'At any rate she didn't understand me. And I didn't understand her. It was like a contest to see who could understand the other the least. She won.' But a good deal of the play is more artistically ambitious than this. Stratton aspires to something like Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing; unfortunately he has neither the skill nor commitment to carry it off. First of...