Speak

Ian C. Nelson is assistant director of libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan, and président de la Troupe du Jour, Regina Summer Stage.

Greg Nelson is one of Western Canada’s most frequently produced
playwrights. His latest effort, a deadpan comedy, is set in Regina and
concerns the plotting of a novel, the floundering of a marriage, and the
chicanery of politics and religion. There are Pinteresque touches in the
play’s designated pauses, carefully notated language rhythms, and
lines left unspoken by the characters.

Nelson has a remarkable ability to suggest whole thickets of character
and background life with only a few sticks of actual plot. In Speak, he
manages to sustain the irony of a story-within-a-story for the play’s
entire 90 minutes, cleverly evoking both Lee Blessing’s A Walk in the
Woods and Moliиre’s Tartuffe in the process. As for humor, the author
squeezes mirth out of lines as simple as “Do you want me to stop?”
Speak is a must-read and a must-see.