The Affections of May and The Motor Trade

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.

One of Canada’s most produced and prolific playwrights, Norm Foster is
probably best known for The Melville Boys, which won the Los Angeles
Drama League Critics Award in 1988. Like England’s Alan Ayckbourn,
Foster writes wittily and perceptively about human foibles.

The Affections of May is a romantic comedy about a woman who runs, with
her husband, a bed-and-breakfast establishment in a small town where
people seem to know her problems before she’s aware of them herself.
When her husband leaves her for a woman accountant “with a big pair of
portfolios,” May finds it hard to keep her head above water. She is
also being pursued by a bank manager and an odd-job man. This is a play
that is even funnier in performance than on the page.

The Motor Trade centres on the struggles of Phil Moss, a car salesman
who has problems with Revenue Canada, a partner who threatens to quit
and become a shoe salesman, and a wife who has left him for a rival
dealer. The Motor Trade is as funny as The Affections of May in its own
raw, gritty, and raucous way. Together these plays mark a significant
contribution to populist Canadian drama.