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Two Hands Clapping
$24.95Two Hands Clapping is a goldmine for actors seeking two-person plays. This volume features full-length, one act, and short scripts for two actors. The playwrights are Canadian and are working from coast to coast and most regions in between. Established writers appear in this collection, as well as voices that are just beginning to make their mark in Canadian theatre.
The plays in Two Hands Clapping have appeared on the main stage, in alternative theatres or non-traditional theatre spaces, at the fringe, and/or in professional workshops. Some of the plays have toured nationally and internationally.
This volume also includes in-depth interviews with playwrights, focusing on the challenges and satisfactions of writing a play for two actors. Two Hands Clapping is a valuable source book for theatre students and teachers seeking new plays of varying lengths for production in festivals or other performance opportunities. It is also an excellent place to find two-actor scene work and — of course — to discover new voices, as well as new work by some of your favourite Canadian playwrights.
Includes:
Poochwater by Mike McPhaden
The Dinner Party by Rose Cullis
3… 2… 1 by Nathan Cuckow and Chris Craddock
Jane’s Thumb by Kelley Jo Burke
The File by Greg Nelson
Lola Shuffles the Cards by Kit Brennan
The House Wife by Sherry White and Ruth Lawrence
Afterglow by Peter Boychuk -
Two Hemispheres
$18.00Imagining the lives of nineteenth-century women asylum patients, Nadine McInnis charts her descent into, and recovery from, depression.
In the afterword to Two Hemispheres, McInnis describes her first encounter with the remarkable photographs that illustrate this moving volume. Patients of the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, these women’s names and stories are lost to history. McInnis imagines their experiences of mental illness as she explores her own journey through clinical depression, and finds in these haunting photographs solace and community.
“In the medical world, the body is often described metaphorically as a machine. Physician-poet William Carlos Williams invoked a similar metaphor when he noted that a poem is a machine made of words. What intrigues me about Nadine McInnis’s insightful collection of poems is how the mechanics of poetry serve to explore what can happen when we as human machines break down. Equally captivating in these evocative and sometimes disturbing poems is the historical impetus for their creationVictorian medical photographs. Two Hemispheres truly acts as a causeway between past and present, health and illness, and the supposed vastly different worlds of arts and biomedicine.” — Dr. J.T.H. Connor, John Clinch Professor of Medical Humanities and History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland
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Two Houses Half-Buried in Sand
$29.95A vital collection of writings about First Nations people and culture as it existed on the island coasts of the Depression-era Pacific Northwest and originally published in the pages of Victoria’s oldest newspaper, the Daily Colonist, the sixty stories included here are the result of a unique collaboration between a middle-aged woman, Beryl Cryer, of upper-class British ancestry, and well-known Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking cultural elders, keenly aware of the punitive anti-land claims legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1927, and therefore eager to have their stories told and published.
Mary Rice from Kuper Island, who lived next door to the Cryer family home in Chemainus, BC, is well remembered even today for her storytelling abilities; she taught Beryl Cryer, with whom she became close friends, countless aspects of indigenous culture, particularly as experienced by women. An elder in a thriving native culture, she introduced Cryer to the many other authorities from whom these stories were gathered for the newspaper.
Although she was not a trained anthropologist, Beryl Cryer was an honest observer and careful recorder. She embellished the material she collected with minor anecdotal introductions that give the reader a vivid sense of the person telling the story. The accounts themselves are valuable documents of Coast Salish oral traditions dealing with a wide range of subject matter from known sources, almost all of whom were well-versed in English.
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Two Letters … And Counting!
$25.00Although he has won plaudits and awards for work in film, television, and on stage, Tony Nardi’s most recent headlines have been earned by his TWO LETTERS … And Counting!. Two Letters is based on two actual letters sent to “middle-men” of the Canadian cultural scene: a film/television producer and two theatre critics. Letter One articulates an actor/writer’s struggle with cultural stereotypes in Canadian theatre/film/TV. Letter Two challenges misconceptions about commedia dell’arte by present-day theatre critics and directors. It explores a history of an ‘actor-less’ theatre culture in Canada at the hands of ‘director’s theatre,’ in which, increasingly, a tradition of over-trained actors and under-trained directors is encouraged. “…And Counting!” (Letter Three) is a postmortem of Two Letters, and a journey into the present state of theatre, culture (and funding).
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Two of the Best In the Neighbourhood
$25.95Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a backstage account of the creation and continued life of the smash hit play 2 Pianos 4 Hands. (This volume also includes the full script of the play.) With contributions from the principal players of this story, including many from co-creator Ted Dykstra, Greenblatt takes us from the genesis of the idea to the blockbuster cross-Canada tour and to productions in the US, England, and Japan. A highly personal and subjective tale filled with anecdotes that span almost three decades, Two of the Best in the Neighbourhood is a glimpse into a fascinating chapter of Canadian theatre history.
2 Pianos 4 Hands tells the story of Ted and Richard, who grow up as “piano nerds,” dealing with pushy parents, eccentric teachers, hours of repetitive practice, stage fright, the agony of competitions and exams, and the dream of greatness. As they mature, they become more aware of the gap between the merely very good and the great, and they come to the humbling realization that although concert stardom may be out of reach, they just might be two of the best piano players in the neighbourhood–and that in itself is worth celebrating.
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Two or Three Guitars
$19.95Since the emergence of his first collection in 1982, John Terpstra has gained recognition as a poet of great precision, compassion and attentiveness. With a fascination for geology, family, heritage, community and faith, he has trained his eye variously on his Hamilton neighbourhood, his Dutch background, the joys and peculiarities of marriage and parenting, as well as on issues of environmental degradation, local economy, security, society and questions of hope. This collection brings together highlights from each of Terpstra’s full-length publications, from Scrabbling for Repose (1982) to Disarmament (2003).
Says Terpstra, “Many of these poems have fallen off the literary wagon, so to speak, by being in books that are now out of print. But I return to them when I give readings. It’s gratifying, and a bit surprising, to read a poem written twenty-five years ago and feel no disjunction between it and a more recent poem. It encourages a sense of time that is non-linear. I’m all for non-linear time. And I see from this selection that what consistently sparks my imagination is all those intersections between people and their natural environment, in the city or with each other in community, family or marriage, or with the natural environment itself. Or, all of them together. Oh, and God. Can’t forget God. He, she or it is in there too, like a dirty shirt. I’ve often wondered what connection exists between the carpentry and woodworking that I have done for a living almost as long as I have been writing (freely), and the writing itself. I think that the two together simply identify me as one in the species homo faber, i.e., one-who-makes. In my case, this is a subspecies of homo ludens, one-who-plays.”
Terpstra’s poetry has always posited a candid, congenial mix of whimsy and contemplation; an extended project of giving history, and institutions like the future and the church, a place in the everyday. With a concern for the specifics of experience, and particularly shared experience, he possesses a remarkable talent for synthesizing the accumulation that lurks behind every interaction.
Among these selections is the full text of Captain Kintail, the long poem that won Terpstra the CBC Literary Competition in 1991. With snatches of conversation, crisis and song, the poem tells the story of a weekend spent in the company of other families at a camp on Lake Huron, the co-mingling of age groups, and the revelry and tension of group endeavours. Inside are some of the early percolations of the poet’s more recent ruminations on faith, family and the geography of the congregation. Two or Three Guitars also brings back into print selections from The Church Not Made With Hands, Devil’s Punchbowl and Forty Days & Forty Nights, with poems like “Atonement,” “The Little Towns of Bethlehem” and “Recordings” that demonstrate Terpstra’s roving interpretations of history and place, his continued interest in storytelling and in the location of the mythic in the here and now.
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Two Roads Home
$21.95A fast-paced literary eco-thriller about the power of resistance, the fine line between activism and terrorism, and what happens when things go too far.
It is 1993 on Vancouver Island. A group of idealistic young activists, determined to do whatever it takes to protect the environment, turn to sabotage. But in a single moment everything they’ve worked for goes terribly wrong: a night watchman at a logging company warehouse is killed in an explosion that they set.
Two Roads Home follows these activists as their lives – and their cause – spiral out of control. Pete, who set the bomb, heads off the grid, where he discovers a vibrant community of squatters who have been affected by the explosion in unexpected ways. Meanwhile, Pete’s mother is determined to track him down and clear his name.
In Two Roads Home, Daniel Griffin deftly reimagines history: what if, instead of the legendarily peaceful Clayoquot Sound protests of the 1990s, things had gone too far? How far is too far, when it comes to protesting what one sees as injustice? And what happens when that line is crossed?
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Two Rooms
$14.95Murdoch is a charming, yarn-spinning, old-school, white Canadian cop. His wife is a doctor: young, beautiful, smart, a Muslim Uyghur-and a suspect. She has a lot to confess. So does he. Murder, betrayal, politics and the war on terror: a love story. Two Rooms was awarded the 2010 John V. Hicks Manuscript Award from the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and the 2010 Uprising National Playwriting Competition from the Downstage Performance Society and the Consortium for Peace Studies at the University of Calgary. The play is being translated into French by Governor General’s Award winner, Jean-Marc Dalpé, and will be produced by Sudbury’s Le Théatre du Novel-Ontario and in Ottawa by Théatre de la Vieille.
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Two Shores / Deux rives
$14.95Two Shores is the first collection of poetry in English by a Vietnamese immigrant to the West. Born in Hanoi in 1940 and then moving to Saigon in 1954, Thuong Vuong-Riddick first describes life in Vietnam under the influence of the Japanese, the Chinese, the Vietminh, the French, and the Americans, as well as the difficulties of living through “the big Hunger.”
In the second part of the book, she deals with her second shore, her life as an immigrant: first in Paris where she experienced the student revolution of May 1968; then in Montreal where she taught at the Universities of Montreal and McGill. Married now to a Canadian, she is making a new life for herself in Vancouver.
Two Shores is a dual language edition: Vuong-Riddick wrote the poems first in English and then recreated them in French.
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Two Tales: Jamali Kamali and ZundelState
$22.95Jamali Kamali is the story of two men who lived in 16th century India. Little about them is known but they are buried together in a small tomb in Delhi. For hundreds of years, the story that these men were lovers has been passed down through the generations. Jamali Kamali is a fictional account of their love, longing, separation, and death. ZundelState takes place a thousand years in the future. The main characters live in a world where history is banned, and dreaming has nearly vanished. But they each carry the recessive gene for dreaming. Joe, a lover of history, is rebellious and secretive. Marianna is a model worker for the State where she works in the HistoryShit Apparatchik Division. They fall in love and duo-dream with surprising, funny, and scary results
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Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths
$20.00Chekhov’s work and life fuse with a daughter’s caring for her dying mother in this powerful debut.
Two Tragedies in 429 Breaths is a book-length series of poems written from the perspective of a daughter who reads Chekhov obsessively while spending a spring and summer caring for her mother, who is dying from pulmonary fibrosis. Through the prism of the relationships in Chekhov’s work and life emerges an honest, intimate, and even occasionally humorous portrayal of the energy we put into each other’s lives during times of deterioration and suffering. A prismatic, memorable debut
… In the early
editions of Chekhov’s letters, his editors removed
anything that might stain his image or the image
of Russia. An ellipsis stands in for vulgar language,
deleterious remarks, and the references to masturbation
he used, like little brooks across the page, but as far as I know,
no one made confetti of his personal life.If it were up to me, I’d prefer to talk today. To ask
my mother questions, finish half-told stories.
— from “Yellow” -
Two Trails Narrow
$21.95Ryman McGregor and Abraham Scott have a lot in common. Both are Algonquin half-breeds unhappily attending St. Xavier’s Residential School in Ontario and desperately seeking to escape the harsh hands of the abusive Jesuit priests. One night, the boys?along with Ryman’s sister?decide to make a break for it, but RCMP trackers quickly pick up their trail. The runaways barely evade capture and begin the long journey to their respective homes. But years later Ryman’s and Abraham’s paths cross again. This time as corporals fighting in one of Canada’s best military units in Europe during WWII.
Set against the residential school experience for Indigenous children and the looming shadow of the Second World War, we see the pain of a young generation of Indigenous people who were pulled into the vortex of forced battle at home and overseas. Through the eyes of two soldiers Two Trails Narrow is a remembrance of the courage and depth of the human spirit in an era of hostilities.
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Two Wheels Through Terror
$18.95?
Glen Heggstad is an adventure motorcyclist who seeks out and rides the most rugged places on the planet. He has been a Hells Angel and a martial arts competitor, but no amount of training or experience was able to prepare him for what he became while riding to the southern tip of South America: a prisoner.
This book is the shocking travelogue of Heggstad’s journey through Central and South America, including his capture by Colombia’s rebel ELN army, and the eventual realization of his dream to complete his journey. Follow along on his exciting, round-trip to the tip of the world, made all the more amazing by its interruption at the hands of terrorists.
Heggstad was ripped from his motorcycle, robbed of everything, and forced to march through strange jungles with assault rifles at his back. He was fed only small amounts of rice and water and forced to carry heavy equipment, heavy packs, and heavy doubts about his future. Even with all the hand-to-hand and sophisticated combat training Heggstad possessed, it was his shrewd thinking, precise planning, and a “do-or-die” last act of desperation that eventually secured his freedom.
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Twoism
$19.95Shortlisted, Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Part roving eye, part devotion, you wander hotel corridors, entering rooms not quite yours, trying on clothes, blankets, skins. Arguing with the body’s limits and its trickery, you are always in disguise. Sometimes you’re Leda; sometimes the swan. The rooms are haunted with gendered injuries of the past… but messengers arrive to guide you.
In this stunning debut collection by Ali Blythe, every poem is unerringly built with hatches and escapes. Every line shimmers with life and shivers with fleeting materials. Someone or something is always leaving. The early poems, almost claustrophobic in their double vision, gradually give way to poems of aching beauty, erotically charged by the myth of completeness. Ultimately, whether you emerge or disappear, you are transformed.
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Tyler’s Cape
$19.95When Luke Conrad’s aging mother breaks her hip he must return to the Nova Scotian fishing village of Tyler’s Cape for one summer to take care of her. There, as he starts to remember the childhood he has worked so hard to forget, Luke unearths a secret from his mother’s past — a secret that could be the key to understanding all that has happened to his family.
Taking the reader on a journey through childhood and memory, Tyler’s Cape is a story about the relationship between brothers, the difficult yet enduring nature of family, and the rediscovery of a child’s lost world of grace and glory.
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Types of Canadian Women
$19.95“I’ve worked on and off as a picture researcher for non-fiction books,” says K.I. Press, “during which time I looked at an awful lot of archival photographs. A few years ago I came across a book called Types of Canadian Women, Volume I, a 1903 illustrated biographical dictionary of society womenartists, nurses, missionaries, activists and philanthropists, as well as plenty of women whose claim to fame was being rich or titledwho were more or less Canadian. The pictures grabbed me first, but the biographies drew me in. They were so boring, yet there were phrases that suggested what wasn’t being told. Some of these women had been to war zones or lived through rebellions or performed heroic feats that were alluded to in a single phrase. What if, I thought, their biographies told just the good parts? I looked for the book’s promised Volume II to no avail, instead finding a librarian’s note in the catalogue: ‘Volume II never published?’ I knew I had to write it.”
Written as a fantasia of archetypes, Press’s collection takes a jab at the notions of archetypes and gendered behaviour, and at the patronizing undertones that coloured the original. Illustrated with archival photos, this collection of prose and poetry is an album devoted to a more ambiguously female experience of Canada, stretched across several lives, the poet’s eye opening in a different life and the same life with each turn of the page.
With subtle misunderstandings, quiet subversions and all-out rebellions, Types of Canadian Women, Volume II uncovers the psychological knots that once and still snag female ambition and relationships. Using the turn-of-the-century occupations and preoccupations that shaped the original collection, Press illuminates her portraits of farming, pioneering, politics, writing, painting, acting, athletics, childbirth, homemaking, religion, education, romance and psychosis with fantastical and symbolic elements to create a series of narratives that slip almost imperceptibly from reality into imagination and back again.
Press’s women share an inventive interaction with the Canadian landscape and its emblems, as well as with some of the landmark events in colonial and Confederation history. Weaving practicality and plain-spoken accounts together with dreamlike delusions and escapist leaps, the Canadian women in this volume sidestep more linear versions of events. Ultimately, it is with reverent appreciation and irreverent mischievousness that Press upends the project of naming and definition, and in the process locates many more authentic sources of connection.