{"id":39,"date":"2008-12-25T11:50:50","date_gmt":"2008-12-25T16:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2008-12-25T11:50:50","modified_gmt":"2008-12-25T16:50:50","slug":"courting-the-little-play-that-could","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Courting, the little play that could"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I was googling myself the other day\u2026(I admit I do this more than I should, but this time, I had a reason! <\/span>I wanted to see if this blog would show up; alas, it does, so you\u2019ll be getting a slightly more politic version of my life, but it\u2019s not that different, really.) <\/span>Among the things I stumbled upon was this review of Brave New Play Rites, with a specific mention of my play, Courting. <\/span>For those who might be interested:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

University<\/span> of Toronto<\/span> Quarterly, Volume 77, Number 1, Winter 2008<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Letters in Canada 2006: Drama, by Nancy Copeland<\/span><\/p>\n

Pg. 94<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The second anthology, <\/span>Brave New Play Rites<\/span>, edited by Bryan Wade,<\/span><\/p>\n

collects twenty-five short plays to celebrate the twenty-year history of<\/span><\/p>\n

the annual festival of work written by students of <\/span>UBC<\/span>\u2019s Creative<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing Program. The selected playwrights range from novices to<\/span><\/p>\n

authors who have gone on to establish themselves as writers, among<\/span><\/p>\n

them Aaron Bushkowsky, Kevin Chong, and Corrina Hodgson.<\/span><\/p>\n

The anthology not only samples the history of the festival, it is a<\/span><\/p>\n

compendium of experiments with the twenty-minute play. The monologues,<\/span><\/p>\n

of which there are four, are predictably the most successful:<\/span><\/p>\n

a great deal can be revealed about a character within this format.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, writing effective multi-character comedies and dramas<\/span><\/p>\n

within the constraints of the form is more challenging: the situations<\/span><\/p>\n

can seem contrived and the plotting forced, and as Wade notes in his<\/span><\/p>\n

introduction, drama is \u2018more problematic\u2019 than comedy within \u2018a twenty<\/span><\/p>\n

minute timeframe.\u2019 Yet two plays set in restaurants show the potential for<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

both comedy and drama within this format. Dan Hershfield\u2019s <\/span><\/strong>Courting<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(<\/span><\/strong>2004<\/span><\/strong>) amusingly conflates dating and legal proceedings as a pair of<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

waiters and a chef take on the roles of lawyers and judge to adjudicate<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

the relationship between a couple on a dinner date.<\/span><\/strong> In Tim Kennaley\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

Reunion<\/span> <\/span>(<\/span>2002<\/span>), on the other hand, a disturbing sense of uncertainty<\/span><\/p>\n

and menace develops as an apparent stranger is gradually coerced<\/span><\/p>\n

into accepting the identity foisted upon him by two friends. Again it<\/span><\/p>\n

is predictable that plays like these, which are unified in time as well<\/span><\/p>\n

as place, are more likely to succeed, but Hodgson\u2019s <\/span>Recess <\/span>(<\/span>2002<\/span>),<\/span><\/p>\n

which shows the relationships that develop among three troubled<\/span><\/p>\n

students at a private girls\u2019 school in twelve brief, economical scenes<\/span><\/p>\n

set over the course of the academic year, demonstrates how rich the form<\/span><\/p>\n

can be in the hands of a skilful playwright.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Alas, I think the best sentence for publicity purposes isn\u2019t in readily quotable form, but still, always nice to be singled out from an anthology.<\/p>\n

\n

Also, a production coming up in Sudbury, at Playfest, running January 22nd to 25th. <\/span>Go for the big nickel, stay for Courting!<\/p>\n

\n

Hopefully, I\u2019ll write something else that\u2019s good at some point, because as of now, in terms of accomplishments, Courting is kicking the crap out of everything else I\u2019ve written. <\/span>(They teach it in colleges, they do!) <\/span>That said, I\u2019m pretty proud of it, so Godspeed, little play!<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks for indulging my pride, everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I was googling myself the other day\u2026(I admit I do this more than I should, but this time, I had a reason! I wanted to see if this blog would show up; alas, it does, so you\u2019ll be getting a slightly more politic version of my life, but it\u2019s not that different, really.) Among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scatteredflurries.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}