The Bootlegger Blues

David E. Kemp is head of the Drama Department at Queen’s University.

Taylor’s first full-length play is a well-written farcical situation
comedy set on a reserve. It follows the plight of Martha, a churchgoing
teetotaller who finds herself stuck with 143 cases of beer after the
failure of a Church fund-raiser. Her son (nicknamed “Blue”), a
special constable on the reserve, is placed in a compromising position
when his mother decides to bootleg the beer. At the same time, Blue has
fallen for a young woman who may, or may not, be his cousin, while at
the same time his sister, Marianne, bored with her “Indian Yuppie”
husband, finds herself attracted to a handsome dancer at the powwow.

Taylor, an Ojibwa from Ontario’s Crowe Lake Reserve, is establishing
himself as a writer for stage and screen, with scripts for “Street
Legal” and “The Beachcombers,” and two one-act plays, Toronto at
Dreamer’s Rock and Education Is Our Right, both published in 1990.