The Melville Boys

David E. Kemp is a drama professor at Queen’s University and the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Norm Foster’s 1983 comedy Sinners was the most successful season opener in the history of Theatre New Brunswick. He followed this with The Melville Boys in1984, which proved to be even more successful and popular nationally. His latest play, Windfall, opened Toronto’s Theatre Plus season in May 1986, while The Melville Boys is scheduled for a major Toronto production early in 1987.

There is both a remarkable honesty and an unerring accuracy about the attitudes expressed in this play. Even the two minor characters, Owen Melville and Loretta, are drawn with sensitivity and candor, and they provide an excellent counterpoint to the more significant dilemmas faced by Lee and Mary.

The play is memorably theatrical, while the attitudes explored are quintessentially Canadian. The characterizations of Lee Melville and Mary represent work of the highest order and they make a significant contribution to the play’s emotional depth.

The Melville Boys isboth emotionally engaging and theatrically sophisticated. It is one of the most rewarding, gentle and genuine Canadian plays of the past decade.