Talker's Town and the Girl Who Swam Forever

What happens when two differently gendered playwrights from distinct cultures investigate racism, misogyny, and miscegenation in a small 1960s mill town? Talker's Town by Nelson Gray and The Girl Who Swam Forever by Marie Clements are two one-act plays that portray identical characters and action, but from entirely different perspectives in terms of gender and culture. The action in both involves an indigenous girl who escapes from a residential school and hides out by the river. In Talker's Town, the story is conveyed by a young non-native boy whose friend has had a relationship with the girl and whose attempts to hush up the affair lead to disastrous consequences. In The Girl Who Swam Forever, the action unfolds from the perspective of the indigenous girl, who - to claim her past and secure her future - must undergo a shape-shifting transformation to meet her grandmother's ancestral spirit in the form of a hundred-year-old sturgeon. Employing a single setting and working from the same set of characters, the playwrights have created two radically different fictional worlds, one native and one non-native. Published together, the plays form a fascinating dyptich, revealing rifts between indigenous and colonial/settler histories and providing a vehicle for cultural exchange.

Author: Marie Clements, Nelson Gray
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 07/17/2018
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9781772012019
ISBN10: 1772012017
BISAC Categories:
- Drama | Canadian
- Drama | Women Authors

About the Author
Nelson Gray is a playwright, poet, director, theatre scholar, and a professor in the English Department at Vancouver Island University. His writings for the stage, in particular his collaborations with director and choreographer Lee Eisler, have won numerous commissions and awards, and been produced in Canada, the U.S., England, and Germany. He was the co-founder, with Beth Carruthers, of the Songbird Project--one of the first eco-art projects in Canada to bring together the arts, sciences, and community activists--and his poetry and scholarly articles have appeared in several journals and anthologies. With the assistance of a Canada Council Award and a SHHRC Insight Development Grant, he is currently working on the libretto and pre-production for Here Oceans Roar, an eco-opera and film script based on his experiences as a salmon troller in the Pacific Northwest and incorporating oceanographic research from Ocean Networks Canada. Nelson has a BA (Hons) from Simon Fraser University, an MFA in Directing from the University of British Columbia, and a PhD in Theatre History from the University of Victoria. Marie Clements is an award-winning Métis performer, playwright and director whose work has been presented on stages across Canada, the United States and Europe. She is the founder of urban ink productions, a Vancouver-based First Nations production company that creates, develops and produces Aboriginal and multi-cultural works of theatre, dance, music, film and video. Clements was invited to the prestigious Festival de Theatre des Ameriques in 2001 for Urban Tattoo and in 2002 for Burning Vision. In 2002, she worked in the writing department of the television series Da Vinci's Inquest. A fellowship award from the BC Film Commission enabled her to develop the film adaptation of her stage play, The Unnatural and Accidental Women. She is also a regular contributor on CBC Radio. Clements writes, or, perhaps more accurately, composes, with an urbane, incisive and sophisticated intellect; her refined artistry is deeply rooted in the particulars of her place, time and history. The world premiere of Copper Thunderbird is the first time Canada's National Arts Centre has produced the work of a First Nations playwright on its main stage. Awards and Recognition Canada-Japan Literary Award (2004) Burning Vision Governor General's Literary Award for Drama, Finalist (2003) Burning Vision Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding Original Play, Nominee (2002) Burning Vision Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, Nominee (2002) Jessie Richardson Awards, P.T.C. Award for Outstanding Original Play in Development (1998) The Unnatural and Accidental Women Sundance Screenwriting Competition, Finalist (1998) Now Look What You Made Me Do Praxis Screenwriting Competition, Short-listed (1997) Now Look What You Made Me Do Jessie Richardson Awards, Sydney Risk Award for Original Script by an Emerging Playwright (1993) Age of Iron.