Wanna Play?: Three Plays for High School

David E. Kemp is chair of the Drama Department at Queen’s University
and the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Wanna Play? is an excellent, exciting, and highly relevant addition to
the body of presentational work for young people. The volume consists of
three plays: Carrying the Calf, by Shirley Barrie; Blind Dates, by Anna
Fuerstenberg; and Thin Ice, by Banuta Rubess and Beverley Cooper.

In Carrying the Calf, four women of different ages and cultural
backgrounds meet in a self-defence class. Initially they mistrust one
another, but eventually they are drawn together by the fact that each of
them is experiencing some form of violence in her life. The women help
each other move toward an understanding of their own individual
spiritual and physical strengths.

Thin Ice, the most provocative and controversial of the three plays,
and also the best-written, is about the values, myths, and stereotypes
that encourage sexual coercion. Unashamedly (but not stridently)
feminist in tone, it resolves the differences between no, yes, and
maybe.

Blind Date is about fear of the future, the importance of making right
the career decisions, and the joys, fears, and foibles of dating.

Timely and thought-provoking, this is a book that anyone connected with
drama and the young cannot afford to be without. Highly recommended.