Johnnyville: «An Official Secrets Act» and «Total Body Washout»

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

Drew Carnwath is a Toronto-based playwright, actor, and teacher whose
work has been produced in New York, Montreal, and Toronto. Carnwath’s
interest in the complexities and absurdities of the human experience is
clearly reflected in Johnnyville: An Official Secrets Act. In the bleak
post–Cold War period in which the play is set, love is the exception,
not the rule. Through his anxious characters, the playwright questions
the reliability of memory and the stability of the self. For the
characters in this structurally complex and fascinating play, there is a
fundamental gap between appearance and reality. In the funny and
sometimes puzzling Total Body Washout, we witness one man’s journey to
the edge of madness and back again. Here Carnwath’s trademark
surrealism is punctuated with acute social observations.