Talking Back

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

Don Kerr is a poet, fiction writer, and historian who is very active in
Saskatoon’s heritage movement. Talking Back, which in its original run
in 1988 at Saskatoon’s Twenty-Fifth Street Theatre played to sold-out
houses, is about the birth of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation,
a political party formed during the Great Depression. The play is long
on historical research, has lively dialogue, and is eclectically
theatrical in its efforts to entertain, with some sections even given a
cleverly sung marking or coda (much like a point song).