February 26 - March 30 , 2008
By David Gow
Starring in alphabetical order
Don Anderson
Christine Aubin-Khalifah
Marcel Jeannin
Stephanie McNamara
Mikel Mroué
Directed by David Gow
Set Design: Vincent Lefevre
Costume Design: Ginette Grenier
Lighting Design: Spike Lyne
Stage Manager: Christine Hidalgo
Apprentice Stage Manager: Sarah-Marie Langlois
Montreal playwright, David Gow’s, newest play seems to be ripped from the headlines of a recent newspaper with its ironic, bloodchilling investigation of how easy it is to lose one's rights in a post 9/11 world. A Canadian citizen of Middle-East heritage is detained while transferring between flights at JFK airport in New York. The Canadian consular officials cannot (or will not) facilitate his release or even gain due process for their fellow countryman, and the man’s fate is increasingly caught up in a Kafkaesque morass of security law-language and a byzantine Department of External affairs.
The play puts a very real and personal face on the political issue of detention certificates and portrays the fears, agonies and lack of humanity experienced by the family of a man branded by his name and racial profile.
"Gow has delivered a hard-hitting and sharp-edged script full of quotable lines... Mikel Mroué delivers a fine debut at Centaur...Marcel Jeannin is
brilliant ...Don Anderson, always worth watching ...an ingenuous set"
- Montreal Mirror
"[Relative Good is] very well written, smart,
and hilarious in places too...
it moves quickly, ...the acting is really strong"
- CBC Radio One, DAYBREAK
"There are few writers around t
hat have David Gow's gift"
- Torontostage.com
"a barrage of 23 pungent scenes combining the claustrophobic feel of Franz Kafka's The Trial with the inevitable downward spiral of David Mamet's Edmond."
- Theatremania
"With Relative Good,
Gow is clearly responding to today's
disturbing political climate;
but as a result of his radiant anger,
he's also written a play with a significance
that transcends international conditions."
- Zachary Pincus-Roth New York
