Saint Francis of Esplanade: A Play in Two Acts

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

The titular hero of poet Sonya Skarstedt’s first play is 62-year-old
Francis Amable, a born-again Catholic who lives in a Montreal rooming
house. Neighbor Lazarus Fricker, 33, is Francis’s moral opposite.
Whereas Francis sees it as his role to reform all sinners, Lazarus
considers it his duty to introduce Francis to the attractions of
venality. Other characters include homophobic George Pank, his
girlfriend Kleo, and Marguerite Feuille, a wise, outspoken, and
curiously childlike every-woman figure who acts as a catalyst for much
of the ensuing moral argument. Offsetting the play’s sometimes stilted
dialogue are speeches that have a ring of true poetry about them.