ghters of the House _

i n) ichelle Roberts

| Edi

ws in the paper this week, you are correct... BUT we did that on pur- s ite Christmas,or Hanukkah and want a gift id ‘that hard-to-buy- | ig for yourself to read. Here are numerous ideas... g odern Canadian Plays Volume I an paedagpbeans cig ire 3: a ee 4 : Talonbooks, third edition. oS eS . |The Best of Bizarro Volume II | 5 Wasserman | |(Chronicle Books) | 3

| |By Dan Piraro |

Modern Canadian Plays is just that: a collection of modern Canadian plays. Talonbooks first published it in 1985, andit hasbeena popular reference book for thespians, students and teachers ever since. In fact, it’s billed as ‘‘the primary textbook in Canadian theatre and literature courses around the world.’’ | The development of significant homegrown Canadian theatre was relatively recent, even | considering our status as one of the younger major countries in the world. Modern Canadian | | Plays, therefore, begins with English Canadian drama’ sfirst significant era in the late 1960’s and | extends into recent years (as late as 1989’s Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing). | Every selection is preceded by biographical and bibliographical notes on its author(s), |

Canadian theatre in its entirety: from the seventeenth century to the mean governmental thrift | of the Mulroney years and the advent of mega-musicals.

In addition to an historical overview, these books provide an impressive selection of plays: The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Fortune and Men’s Eyes, Les Belles Soeurs, Creeps, Leaving Home, 1837: The Farmer’s Revolt, Walsh, The St. Nicholas Hotel, Jacob’s Wake and Automatic Pilot are all in volume I. Zastrozzi, Billy Bishop Goes to War, Balconville, Doc, The Occupation of | Heather Rose, Toronto Mississippi, | Am Yours, Moo, Polygraph, and Dry Lips Oughta Move | to Kapuskasing can be found in volume II. Some are favourites, some are not, but they are all | | chosen as significant works-- and their diversity amply reflects that of Canada and its growing | body of drama.

Be Sean McQuaid |

Jackers: Warstrider '|(Avonova Science Fiction)

| | making these texts handy reference guides to Canadian playwrights as well as their plays. | | Wasserman, the editor, provides introductions for the two volumes that span the course of| |

By William H. Keith, Jr. If this novel was a movie, it would be fodder for Turkey Dinner. Keith’s book tells the blood- and-guts story of a futuristic war between greedy Imperialist overlords and idealistic freedom- _ seeking rebels. I found the plot buried under a sea of futuristic pseudo-scientific technobabble- - words that Keith seems to have invented himself. Had itbeen written in the Queen’s English, Warstriders would have been easier to understand and probably just as effective.

One thing that stood out positively was the naga, a slimy being whose completely different mode of thinking was well thought out and convincingly described. Keith’s aliens were interesting, but his genetically engineered and technologically enhanced humans even mote so.

The caste system differentiating Nihongo from Gaijin (Japanese and white guys to the

ot a bad job, but I hate the :A Farcus Collection ews & McMeel

avid Waisglass and Gordo hart & ;

nly two years in syndication, Farcus is

in over 250 newspapers. This cartoon S aimed at the business world, and has -d to poke fun at almost everything from ions to dentistry. Favourite targets dairy farming, affirmative action, gal- €s, and Santa Claus. the individual cartoons range from y to outrageous. One of the best Santa Claus at the auditor’s: ‘You ay sixty billion toys and didn’t get one '’’ Another that struck meas poignant ‘wo very aged men, one of whom was A letter. ‘‘Hey, only three more months Student loan will be paid off!”’

case you haven’t guessed, I liked the 'Y family enjoyed it as well, and I had

th my sister to get it away from her. PC a good laugh, look for this Farcus

Peric

uninitiated) and genies (gene engineered) from full human was to me much more interesting than whose team could shoot down more ships. I thought it especially ironic that the “‘full humans”’ of the twenty-fifth century had computer hardware cybernetically linked to their nervous systems. If that is full human, what are we?

Disturbing scene to look for: a description of a “‘living statue’ ’ which is 90% human, but with genetically altered DNA. The statue lives, thinks and understands, yet it cannot move or speak. Its nervous system hasbeen tailored to continually transmit pain ‘‘roughly on the level of being burned alive’’.

Gratifying sense of closure: at the end of the novel, a rebel genie soldier puts the statue

out of its misery.

annon Younker

/The Trojan Cockroach. Dickensian ro-\ dents. The Accordion in the Stone. A mummified Mickey Mouse. You mightn’t think these things have anything in common apart from being just plain weird,but there is indeed a common denominator: they all sprang from the fertile brain of cartoonist Dan Piraro, creator of the syndicated one- panel Bizarro cartoon.

- One-panel weirdness is generally con- sidered the domain of The Far Side’s Gary Larson, but Piraro proves time and again that there’s room for more than one wacko on the comics page. Subdued and subtle but seldom inaccessible, Pirarois a cartoon con- tender in his own right, This latest collec- tion yields another batch of hilarity and head trips, all rendered in Piraro’s distinc- tive drawing technique: a slick, pseudo- realistic illustrative style that far outstrips _ Larson (and many other cartoonists) from a technical standpoint. All of this adds up to make Piraro one of the more sophisticated (but no less amusing) of the one-panel won- ders (and how many other folks have the

long-d pher Socrates write an

introduction to their book?).

a Sean McQuaid iy The Wives

of Bath

dsanSwan : d this book, but I cainot *t tell you the plot without

November 22, 7994