{"title":"David Fennario","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"balconville-book-david-fennario-9780889221451","title":"Balconville","description":"\u003ci\u003eBalconville\u003c\/i\u003e is Canada's first bilingual play. Three families and Thibault, the neighbourhood rubbie, sit on their balconies in the heat of a Montreal summer. It is election time and Gaétan Bolduc is running for re-election for the Liberals. His broadcast truck roams the streets making election promises in English and in French, and playing the music of Elvis Presley. The English and the French-Canadian working class take on the Establishment in this award-winning play.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Cast of 3 women and 6 men.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367712198929,"sku":"CIN0889221456G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52688847765777,"sku":"NLS9780889221451","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0889221456.jpg?v=1751363539"},{"product_id":"joe-beef-book-david-fennario-9780889222915","title":"Joe Beef","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367725502737,"sku":"CIN0889222916G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689850073361,"sku":"NLS9780889222915","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0889222916.jpg?v=1751331001"},{"product_id":"on-the-job-book-david-fennario-9780889221024","title":"On the Job","description":"It is Christmas Eve, 1970. In the shipping room of a Montreal dress factory, the workers get drunk and decide to go on strike.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"So many of the guys I knew on the street are gone dead or crazy, man. There's no escape. This whole country is just one big factory, one big jail, Billy ... Either you're a good nigger or ya die. Know what I mean? ... Black, yellow, white. We're all niggers down on Rockefeller's Plantation, man.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Punks, Billy. All we get now is punks ... I used to have this shipping room running like a new machine, remember, Billy? ... No trouble, no fuss, 'cause everybody did their job and knew their place, but now ... In the last five years, the kids been getting more and more like that Gary Boyce. Shit disturbers. They all got that look in their eye. Know what I mean? Like they don't give a damn.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eOn the Job\u003c\/i\u003e is David Fennario's post-mortem on the '60s and a look at the Canadian class structure. The play was first performed at Centaur Theatre, Montreal. Subsequently, it has been performed at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa; been revived by Centaur Theatre; and been staged at the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50373007048977,"sku":"CIN0889221022G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52688871850257,"sku":"NLS9780889221024","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0889221022.jpg?v=1750819501"},{"product_id":"banana-boots-book-david-fennario-9780889223967","title":"Banana Boots","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBanana Boots\u003c\/i\u003e is a one-man-show \/ memoir in which Fennario recounts, with astonishing insight and wit, the phenomenon of taking his famous bilingual play Balconville to Belfast on a British \/ Canadian cultural mission. Given the subject of \u003ci\u003eBalconville\u003c\/i\u003e, that the real problem in Quebec is not one of language or culture, but one of British imperialism and the class structure it imposes on its \"colonials,\" the ironies of such an event are, of course, both delicious and irresistible.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Though first mystified by the dismissive and disinterested response to his play, Fennario gradually realizes that it is his handlers and agents, presenting him as an icon of the British Empire, who are causing the problem. Once out among the working class and the bristling tension-filled atmosphere of their pub-based communities, Fennario experiences a mutual epiphany of solidarity with \"the troubles\" in Ireland and \"the troubles\" in Quebec, brought to a head by his soul mate \"Banana Boots,\" the stand-up Irish comedian who regales his audience with scathing caricatures of both Ian Paisley and the leaders of Sien Fein. Himself an Anglophone descendant of Irish immigrants who came to \"the point\" in Montreal to escape the potato famine in 1847, Fennario remains an unabashed Marxist and Quebec separatist.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBanana Boots\u003c\/i\u003e is Fennario's clearest expression of his revolutionary social conscience since his highly acclaimed student journal \u003ci\u003eWithout a Parachute\u003c\/i\u003e; it is also published in celebration of the historic 1998 referendum in Ireland.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51102825775377,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51102829740305,"sku":"NIN9780889223967","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52670604509457,"sku":"NLS9780889223967","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0889223963.jpg?v=1751396301"},{"product_id":"nothing-to-lose-book-david-fennario-9780889221215","title":"Nothing to Lose","description":"It is 1976. In a tavern in the Point Saint Charles working class district of Montreal, three friends gather on their lunch hour and reminisce about the past. They are survivors of a decade. One is Jerry Nines, a writer who has had some success, having written a novel and a hit play. The others are Jackie Robinson and Frank Saladini, old friends of Jerry's from the Point. They work in a warehouse across the street. During the course of their reunion, Jackie leaves his truck parked at the loading dock of the warehouse and fights the foreman, actions which precipitate a worker's sit-down strike which David Fennario uses as a demand for workers' control of industry.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Cast of nine men.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52671661474065,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52671662129425,"sku":"NLS9780889221215","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780889221215.jpg?v=1762292843"},{"product_id":"bolsheviki-book-david-fennario-9780889226876","title":"Bolsheviki","description":"\u003cp\u003eSet in a hotel bar in Montreal on Remembrance Day, Bolsheviki has World War I veteran Harry \"Rosie\" Rollins telling young reporter Jerry Nines about his experience in the trenches. Rollins recalls men pissing their pants, losing limbs and planning a revolt against their officers. The character of Rosie Rollins is based on World War I veteran Harry \"Rosie\" Rowbottom, who was wounded at Vimy Ridge. Fennario taped an interview with Rowbottom in 1979 in the old \"King Eddy\" Hotel in Toronto over a bottle of Bushmills whiskey.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRosie's meandering monologue delivers a blistering de-glorification of war as it shifts back and forth between his wartime recollections and the present. The veteran's clattering, fast-paced description of life--and death--on the Western Front reproduces the chaotic sounds and rhythm of battle. This cutting-edge drama, profoundly in opposition to conventional histories of Canadian troops in World War I, debunks every sentimental notion of duty, heroism and nationhood.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Birth of Nation\" they called it on TV but I didn't see nobody getting born just a lot of people dying so we could sit there on top of another shit hole of mud with Captain Rutherford still pushing for that DSO or the MC or the MCB or the YMCA with Triangles--just give him a medal will ya?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCast of 1 man\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52671928533265,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52671929123089,"sku":"NLS9780889226876","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780889226876.jpg?v=1762293551"},{"product_id":"motherhouse-book-david-fennario-9780889228481","title":"Motherhouse","description":"\u003cp\u003eFrom the renowned author of Balconville, this powerful drama gives a voice to the disillusioned working-class women employed at the British Munitions Factory in Verdun, Quebec, during the First World War. Following in the trudging footsteps of Fennario's anti-war protest play Bolsheviki (Talonbooks, 2012), Motherhouse similarly debunks the sentimental notions of duty, heroism, and nationhood that figured so prominently in Canadian war effort campaigns and that persist in Canadian history textbooks today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn 1915, with tensions running high across the country over conscription and linguistic and religious issues, dedicated mothers, wives, sisters, and sweethearts assemble artillery shells to support the war effort and inadvertently find themselves assembled to bring about change both in their working conditions and in their personal lives. Meanwhile, their beloved soldiers die on battlefields overseas while their children starve at home because of war profiteering. Verdun's munitions manufacturer employed more than four thousand women during the war, including Fennario's mother. Tragically, the city of Verdun sacrificed more soldiers to both World Wars than any other place in Canada.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCast of 1 woman\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689240326417,"sku":"NLS9780889228481","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780889228481.jpg?v=1762334858"},{"product_id":"doctor-thomas-neill-cream-book-david-fennario-9780889223325","title":"Doctor Thomas Neill Cream","description":"In 1876, Jack the Ripper, otherwise known as Canadian Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, graduated with merit from McGill's faculty of medicine. Cream was a backstreet abortionist and managed an exclusive brothel called The Elite Club. His notorious reputation eventually forced him to flee Canada for London. He was hanged in 1892 for the murder of four prostitutes. Doctor Thomas Neill Cream mixes fact and speculation with its cast of unlikely characters: khaki-covered union organizers - the good guys; five white-faced zombies representing such illustrious Founding Fathers of Confederation and distinguished members of the McGill fraternity as Sir Hugh Allan, Sir William Dawson, Sir William Osler and Lord Strathcona - the victors; and their young prostitutes - the victims. Intended as a cultural exorcism, playwright David Fennario charges with murder the capitalists who are now paraded through our history books as nation-builders. Past evil is paralleled in the present.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689282728209,"sku":"NLS9780889223325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780889223325.jpg?v=1762334959"},{"product_id":"death-of-rene-levesque-book-david-fennario-9780889224803","title":"The Death of Rene Levesque","description":"In taking on \"The Matter of Québec,\" David Fennario provides audiences and readers with an abiding critique of the notion that history is created around \"great causes\" by \"great men.\" Given the recent reversal of fortune delivered to the tempestuous sound and fury of the Québec separatist movement, \u003ci\u003eThe Death of René Lévesque\u003c\/i\u003e is, in retrospect, more than an astonishingly profound and prophetic political document.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Showcasing the surprising theatrical range and virtuosity of the author of Canada's first bilingual--though definitely not bicultural--working-class hit, \u003ci\u003eBalconville\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Death of René Lévesque\u003c\/i\u003e dramatizes the rise and fall of Canada's most tragic public figure of the 20th century. Fennario's deft and subtle characterization of the father of the Parti Québecois, his re-telling of the compromising political realities which formed both the movement and the party as Lévesque created it, and the gradual revelation of the fatal flaw which began to undermine both the man and his dream of a new republic, proceed here with a stately, devastating inevitability which recall the masterful tragedies of Euripides and Shakespeare.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Death of René Lévesque\u003c\/i\u003e presents its audience with the powerful and cathartic stillbirth of a nation, stripped of both pity and fear, as only an Anglophone Québec separatist could possibly imagine it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Cast of two women and four men.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689507385617,"sku":"NLS9780889224803","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780889224803.jpg?v=1762335536"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-david-fennario.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}