A Map of the Senses: Twenty Years of Manitoba Plays

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

A Map of the Senses celebrates 20 years of Manitoba playwriting. Edited
by Rory Runnells, coordinator of the Manitoba Association of
Playwrights, the collection showcases 12 plays, the majority of which
are printed here for the first time.

Among the standouts are Alf Silver’s “Thimblerig,” an assured
piece of prairie realism that examines in depth just what makes an urban
Manitoba community tick; Maureen Hunter’s “Footprints on the
Moon,” another example of prairie realism, albeit one with poetic
leanings; and Bruce McManus’s “Calenture,” a deeply felt and
bitter play about the collapse of the welfare state and the concomitant
rise in support for right-wing opinion.

If the playwrights represented in this deeply interesting collection
share a common theme, it is the need to discover what their communities
are about.