My Morocco
Click here for reviews of My Morocco Style and Approach: The play provides a frank and emotional narrative of his sometimes difficult relationship with his deceased sister and his struggles to come to terms with her death. At the same time the play debates the ethical question of whether it is appropriate to tell the story of a deceased person and takes the playwright himself to task for exploiting memory. In this way the play paints a portrait of the artist’s mind and conscience at work. My Morocco played to sold-out houses at the Edmonton Fringe Festival. In his one man show, Ken acted onstage for the first time in fifteen years and was praised by critics for his “killer embodiment of William S. Buroughs”. Development History: A full-length version of My Morocco was commissioned by Ghost River Theatre in the fall of 2005, with funding from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and was partially developed through Ghost River Theatre’s Monday Night Storytelling class. The majority of the play was written on a slow boat going down the Mekong River in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos. The shaping and crafting of the stage version took place under the expert guidance of Andy Curtis, and premiered at the Oh Solo Mia Festival in April 2006. The Desert Bus Company, our own little production company, toured the play to the 2006 Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton Fringe Theatre Festivals and the play evolved into its present form on that tour. Synopsis:
Ken was in the country for about a week when he called home to let his parents know that he was safe. They were at the funeral home. His sister had died unexpectedly. The thing is ... Ken and his estranged sister had not spoken in two years. Along with the shock comes the horrifying reflex in his playwright’s brain that “hey, this would make a really good play”. Filled with regret and shame, unable to return home for the funeral, Ken is forced to grieve in a country of strangers, surrounded by cockroaches and suffering from constipation. Through a series of flashbacks Ken travels through time and in and out of memories of his sister. Along the way he hallucinates a meeting with William S Burroughs, the famous beat poet and author who offers drug-induced advice, and meets Ibrahim, an arabic carpet salesman whose passion for life both scares and inspires him. A trip across time, space and the chasm of the human heart, My Morocco grabs you gently by the scruff of the neck and drags you through the narrow streets of Casablanca and Tangier.
Production History:
“I admire your balls… and I think you should put that on your poster.” Click here to read an excerpt from My Morocco Click below to order the complete script of My Morocco from one of these Canadian suppliers: |
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