THEATRE AT UBC presents
PROBLEM CHILD &
THE END OF CIVILIZATION
BY GEORGE F. WALKER
Directed by Chris Robson
Feb. 9-18 at 7:30 pm
Telus Studio Theatre
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, CANADA
— On the Subject
Two blistering one-act plays from George F. Walker’s sextet of plays, the smash hit “Suburban Motel.” One seedy motel room houses the deliciously dark and comic world of English Canada’s most accomplished playwright. Both are terrific tales of tenderness from the gritty side of life.
Fiercely funny and equally heartbreaking, Problem Child asks the question “how far would you go to get your baby back?” Holed up in a cheap motel, two young parents impatiently await a social worker's verdict while enlisting the help of a drunken innkeeper. Problem Child is a recipient of the Chalmers Award for “Best New Play.”
Five Stars... (Problem Child is) extraordinarily funny...
Walker at his best."
- The Toronto Sun
The End of Civilization is a gripping stage-noir thriller about an average couple who are driven to cross legal and moral boundaries in order to avoid financial ruin. A bizarre love triangle develops between the man, his wife and a policeman who is investigating the man for a particularly heinous crime.
No other living playwright pushes the boundaries
of comedy as far..." - Chicago Sun-Times
George F. Walker is one of Canada's most prolific and widely produced playwrights. His work has been honoured with two Governor General's Awards, eight Chalmers Awards and five Dora Awards. Walker is also the recipient of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement and is a Member of the Order of Canada. His screen credits include Due South, The Newsroom, This is Wonderland and Living In Your Car.
Chris Robson, Director: (UBC: BFA Acting) MFA Directing student Chris Robson is drawn to plays that affirm the strength of the human spirit and foster a sense of community. Recent credits include City of Beaches by David King, Figment by Jim Cunningham, The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown (also performance pianist), Sex and Madness, Rock and Roll (also writer, music director, and performance pianist.) Acting credits include Richmond Gateway Theatre, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Stratford Festival, Carousel, Cascade Theatre as well as numerous TV, film and commercial credits.
Featuring final year BFA Acting students Scott Button, Christine Bortolin, Joel Garner, Mitchell Hookey, Jordan Kerbs, Alex Pangburn, Melanie Reich and Matt Reznek and Tracy Schut. The creative team includes BFA Design students Wladimiro Woyno [Lighting & Set], Diana Sepulveda [Costumes] Ling Zhong [Sound] and Gabby Holt [Stage Management].
Feb. 9 - 18, 2012: PROBLEM CHILD & THE END OF CIVILIZATION By George F. Walker, Director Chris Robson | TELUS Studio Theatre, Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Map: http://bit.ly/9SgiLX Curtain: Mon. – Sat. @ 7:30 p.m. | Opening: Thur. Feb. 9 | Tickets: Reg. $22/Senior $15/Student $10 | $7 Preview: Feb. 8 | Tickets: 604.822.2678 or Online: http://ubctheatre.universitytickets.com
Media Contact: Deb Pickman P: 604.319.7656 E: publicity.theatre@ubc.ca
GEORGE F. WALKER ~ Biography
— George F. Walker. Photo credit: Ken Woroner
A prolific and popular playwright, director and screenwriter, George F. Walker has greatly enriched Canada's cultural landscape and garnered critical acclaim at home and abroad.
Over the last 35 years he has written more than 20 plays and has created screenplays for several award-winning Canadian television series. His bold, darkly comic work sounds a unique note in Canadian theatre, and has inspired young writers and artists across the country.
Walker was born in 1947 in Toronto. His theatre career began in the early 1970s when, while working as a taxi driver, he noticed a poster soliciting original scripts for the newly founded Factory Theatre. "At that time I'd only ever seen one play," he recalls.
I wrote one (The Prince of Naples), and they produced it.
Then they asked me to be their resident playwright. The momentum kind of grew by itself. I just kept writing!"
Walker experiments with form and language, fitting odd concepts and words into the mouths of everyday characters. Part Kafka, part Lewis Carroll, his distinctive, gritty, fast-paced comedies satirize the selfishness, greed and aggression of contemporary urban culture.
Among his best-known plays are Gossip (1977), Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline (1977), Criminals in Love (1984), Better Living (1986), Nothing Sacred (1988), Love and Anger (1989), Escape from Happiness (1991), Suburban Motel (1997, a series of six plays set in the same motel room), and Heaven (2000). Since the early 1980s he has directed most of the premieres of his own plays.
He was awarded the C.M. (Member of the Order of Canada) on November 17, 2005 for his services to Canadian Theater and Literature. He has received nine Chalmers Awards, five Dora Awards, and two Governor General's Awards.
George F. Walker says of his work,
“Like so many of my generation, my mind is sort of a media garbage bag sometimes. We're all so heavily influenced by television and movies and you don't have to be very perceptive to see it coming out in new plays. The dilemma for me was not to rebel against the problem - it is, after all, a fairly central reality - but to assimilate it and make something of it.”
After a ten-year hiatus from theatre, Walker directed his latest play for the Factory, And So It Goes (2010), which returns to the darker mood of his earlier plays in its portrait of the struggles of a middle-class couple on a downward spiral as they attempt to cope with the husband’s job loss, a missing son, and a schizophrenic daughter. The gloom is ameliorated by the advice of the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut, and the husband’s cooking school exploits.
Sources: The Governor General’s Performing Arts Award Foundation and The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Capturing George
— George F. Walker's career has spanned almost four decades, but Rolly and Stevie (characters from Walker's play Criminal Genius) have succeeded in tying the notoriously elusive dramatist down. To a chair. With lots of rope.
Director Scott Smith's wicked reversal of theatrical order puts Walker in the centre of one of his own creations. This film was produced for the 2009 Governor General's Performing Arts Award.
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