{"title":"Talonbooks","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"somewhere-else-9780889224025","title":"Somewhere Else","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSomewhere Else\u003c\/em\u003e contains George F. Walker’s own selection of his early plays which matter; which for him have stood the test of time; which represent, as he once said, his “classical veneer.” In them he honed his considerable and unique dramatic talent along “that fine line between the serious and the comic,” in settings outside the North American locales of his work since the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWalker’s earliest plays, absurdist dramas reminiscent of Ionesco and Beckett, climaxed with \u003cem\u003eBeyond Mozambique\u003c\/em\u003e (1974), featuring a B-movie jungle locale populated by a drug-addicted, pederastic priest, a disgraced Mountie, a porn-film starlet and a demonic ex-Nazi doctor whose wife thinks she is Olga in Chekhov’s \u003cem\u003eThree Sisters\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eZastrozzi\u003c\/em\u003e (1977), utilizing all the baroque conventions of Jacobean tragedy, pits its protagonist, a self-styled, Machiavellian “Master of Discipline” against the chaos of the universe in a flurry of dramatic excesses that tend toward elegant self-parody. The Chalmers Award-winning \u003cem\u003eTheatre of the Film Noir\u003c\/em\u003e (1981), a murder mystery set in wartime Paris, is the culmination of his work in the Humphrey Bogart \/ Raymond Chandler style, so evident in his trilogy featuring the cynical investigative reporter \/ private-eye, Tyrone Power. The Governor General’s and Chalmers Award-winning \u003cem\u003eNothing Sacred\u003c\/em\u003e (1988), an adaptation of Turgenev’s novel, \u003cem\u003eFathers and Sons\u003c\/em\u003e, consolidated his popular reputation outside of Canada to such a degree that the \u003cem\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/em\u003e declared it “the play of the year.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBeyond Mozambique\u003c\/em\u003e cast of 2 women and 4 men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eZastrozzi\u003c\/em\u003e cast of 2 women and 4 men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTheatre of the Film Noir\u003c\/em\u003e cast of 1 woman and 4 men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNothing Sacred\u003c\/em\u003e cast of cast of 2 women and 9 men\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"George F. 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Yet, even in \u003cem\u003eThe Power Plays\u003c\/em\u003e, Walker is still exploring the ironic and dramatic possibilities of the stereotypes (albeit, by this time, home-grown ones) that continue to provide the fertile ground of contemporary North American sensibilities.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith his creation of the Governor General’s Award winning \u003cem\u003eCriminals in Love\u003c\/em\u003e (1984); the Chalmers Award winning \u003cem\u003eBetter Living\u003c\/em\u003e (1986); and \u003cem\u003eEscape from Happiness\u003c\/em\u003e (1991), Walker embarked on a whole new direction in his evolution as a playwright. Much less of his comic irony now relied on the recognition of character, much more now relied on the creation of character. In a very real way, George Walker had freed himself to come home.” Set in what is transparently a single neighbourhood, the East End of Toronto, these three interrelated plays were quickly collected in a volume called, naturally, \u003cem\u003eThe East End Plays\u003c\/em\u003e, in 1988. From here, George Walker moved in two related directions: to a further exploration of the margins of contemporary urban life in the global village with the three plays now collected in \u003cem\u003eThe East End Plays Part 2\u003c\/em\u003e (1999); and to the continued exploration of linking plays around a single location with the wildly successful six-part \u003cem\u003eSuburban Motel\u003c\/em\u003e (1998). The original three East End Plays are here published in a completely new and revised Talonbooks edition now called \u003cem\u003eThe East End Plays Part 1\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCriminals in Love\u003c\/em\u003e, cast of 3 women and 3 men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBetter Living\u003c\/em\u003e, cast of 4 women and 3 men\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEscape from Happiness\u003c\/em\u003e, cast of 5 women and 5 men\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"George F. 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The play’s characters each exist in their own worlds utterly without context: objectified to the point where their fantasies about who they might have been are all that define them to themselves, and who they superficially appear to be is all that defines them to each other. They are utterly unable to bridge this gulf and imagine each other; though they all remember that they should try to do so, they seem to have forgotten from where this moral imperative emanates. It is from this vestigial organ of empathy that much of the humour of the play is derived.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile the inability of such profoundly superficial and alienated characters to understand each other is the stock-in-trade of stand-up comedians and variety shows, \u003cem\u003e15 Seconds\u003c\/em\u003e does something completely unexpected with this material—the audience is deprived of its traditional cathartic closure, and does not get to feel smug and morally superior after visiting with these characters. It is the characters themselves who, in their irredeemable banality, pronounce their own verdicts of condemnation. In the end, chance reigns supreme in a world where fifteen seconds of inattention or error can, and in fact does, irrevocably determine the shape of an entire lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCast of 1 woman and 3 men\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"François Archambault","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42956878545014,"sku":"9780889224278","price":11.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0671\/1374\/6550\/files\/CoreSourceHub_5790640f-0090-4479-a029-867f62adbb1d.jpg?v=1771709363"},{"product_id":"crimes-and-mercies-9780889225671","title":"Crimes and Mercies","description":"\u003cp\u003eMore than 9 million Germans died as a result of deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after World War II—one quarter of the country was annexed, and about 15 million people expelled in the largest act of ethnic cleansing the world has ever known. Over 2 million of these alone, including countless children, died on the road or in concentration camps in Poland and elsewhere. That these deaths occurred at all is still being denied by Western governments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the same time, Herbert Hoover and Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King created the largest charity in history, a food-aid program that saved an estimated 800 million lives during three years of global struggle against post–World War II famine—a program they had to struggle for years to make accessible to the German people, who had been excluded from it as a matter of official Allied policy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNever before had such revenge been known. Never before had such compassion been shown. The first English-speaking writer to gain access to the newly opened KGB archives in Moscow and to recently declassified information from the renowned Hoover Institution in California, James Bacque tells the extraordinary story of what happened to these people and why.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRevised and updated for this new edition, bestseller \u003ci\u003eCrimes and Mercies\u003c\/i\u003e was first published by Little, Brown in the U.K. in 1997.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"James Bacque","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42956895027318,"sku":"9780889225671","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0671\/1374\/6550\/files\/CoreSourceHub_7c79b8c5-43e5-4aa7-b86a-c1eee0836af5.jpg?v=1771709395"},{"product_id":"salt-water-moon-9780889222571","title":"Salt-Water Moon","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt’s a splendid moon-filled night at Coley’s Point in August, 1926. Eighteen-year-old Jacob Mercer has returned from Toronto to the tiny Newfoundland outport, hoping to win back his former sweetheart, Mary Snow. But Mary has become engaged to wealthy Jerome McKenzie, and she is still hurt and bewildered by Jacob’s abrupt departure a year earlier. 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A hard-hitting presentation of a play-within-a-play assaults the audience as Youssef, Verdecchia and Chai do Shakespeare, Shaw and Swift one better with an endless string of buffooneries and absurdities derived from an inversion of the clichés defining the geo-politics of the Middle East at the beginning of the 21st century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInformed by the research of Paul Krugman and Noam Chomsky, sent up by the post-modern cultural relativism of “Jean Paul Jacques Beauderrièredada,” this political satire is not for the faint of heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCast of 4 men.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marcus Youssef","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42960150134902,"sku":"9780889225169","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0671\/1374\/6550\/files\/CoreSourceHub_2d554a81-47c6-4871-b55f-f37c8eb4b392.jpg?v=1771709342"},{"product_id":"chimera-9780889225695","title":"Chimera","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat makes \u003ci\u003eChimera\u003c\/i\u003e so compelling is that Wendy Lill has lived almost all the roles the play dramatizes: NDP critic for both culture and persons with disabilities, she came to politics after a career in community health care and as a reporter for the CBC.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis play arose from her experience as one of the parliamentarians who passed a Canadian law in 2004 concerning human reproductive technologies. She recalls being at a conference where a spokesman for a pharmaceutical company boasted about the array of new pre-diagnostic tests being developed to detect anomalies in fetuses. “I was sitting in this room with many people with disabilities and I realized that what he was saying is that quite possibly a lot of these people would not be around today. They wouldn't have been born.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe ethics of stem-cell research—in particular the creation of crossspecies “chimeras,” the mixing of genetic material from humans and animals, is a hotly debated topic with political, scientific, moral and spiritual dimensions. While such experiments could hold the key to curing many diseases, to their detractors they conjure up everything from visions of divine retribution to sci-fi nightmares from B-grade horror films. 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For thirty years, Marie-Louise has worked at the local post office, and, through the many letters she sorts when they arrive and the ones that she stamps before they go out, she has come to know the lives of everyone in town and vicariously experience their various loves, losses, and personal dramas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this one-woman musical tour de force, Marie-Louise confides in us the interwoven stories sealed in the envelopes she handles every day. A samba beat offers the soundtrack for the tale of a local woman’s passion- ate but doomed affair with a man from Rio de Janeiro; a rhythmic tango plays as Marie-Louise divulges a friend’s steamy tryst in Argentina. 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