Voices of a Generation

Three Millennial Plays

Michelle MacArthur

• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780369102980
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático canadiense

Voices of a Generation gathers three Canadian plays that crack open millennial stereotypes to reveal a generation's complex and varied experiences.

zahgidiwin/love by Frances Koncan follows Namid through multiple generations: as a survivor of abuse in a residential school in the 1960s, as a missing woman held in a suburban basement in the 1990s, and as the rebellious daughter of a tyrannical queen in a post-apocalyptic, matriarchal society. A comedy about loss in the era of truth and reconciliation, zahgidiwin/love uses a mash-up of theatrical styles to embody the millennial creative impulse to remix and remake while presenting a vital perspective on what decolonization might look like both on and off stage.

The Millennial Malcontent by Erin Shields is a gender-swapped adaptation of Sir John Vanbrugh's Restoration Comedy The Provoked Wife, following a group of millennials during a night out as they search for love and sex and document it all on social media.Satirizing every trope from social media stardom to economic precarity to slacktivism, Shields reveals the loneliness lurking under every smiling profile photo.

In Smoke by Elena Belyea, Aiden's ex Jordan arrives at Aiden's door to confront her about the allegation that Jordan sexually assaulted her two years ago, forcing them to discuss their conflicting memories of their last night together and whether and how they're going to move forward. With Jordan meant to be performed by either a cis-male or cis-female actor, Smoke is a nuanced examination of issues and perceptions surrounding sexual assault and consent.

The Millennial Malcontent

Erin Shields

Acknowledgements

In addition to those who participated in the original production, I would like to thank Richard Rose, Andrea Romaldi, David Jansen, Tamara Bernier Evans, and Peter Hinton for dramaturgical support throughout the process. Also, a huge thank you to Sir John Vanbrugh, who’s play The Provok’d Wife inspired this piece.

Playwright’s Note

I fell in love with The Provoked Wife by Sir John Vanbrugh when I played the role of Lady Fanciful at Rose Bruford College in London, England. On the surface, there is a lightness to the text—a playful banter concerning marriage, the morality of the sexes, romantic pursuits, disguises, mistaken identities, and drunken drag. In short, all the ingredients of a solid Restoration Comedy. At the same time, however, there is a darker comedy at play: a vain, self-deluded woman is shamelessly ridiculed; a virtuous wife is trapped in an abusive marriage; a reckless bawd is cuckolded and spirals into self-loathing. The tension between these two modes of comedy provides space for satire and critique of the social dynamics at play. Vanbrugh does not pass moral judgment on the actions of his characters, but rather invites us to laugh at both the light and the dark, to find pleasure in the pain of the characters and, I believe, in ourselves.

Youth culture today is still a world of two very different narratives. There is the light, crafted, online, public persona in which people celebrate their victories, proclaim their social and political alliances, and ridicule mainstream “bad guys.” Occasionally there is a pronouncement of loss: a break up, a death, a cry for help. But even those cries seem somehow superficial, a scratching at the surface of the terrifying complexity of what it is to be human. This curated participation in online forums fosters an isolation which can give way to desperate longing—a longing for honest connection, a longing for self-fulfilling work with substantial remuneration, a longing for alcoholic obliteration, a longing for individualism and love. My goal with The Millennial Malcontent was to craft a contemporary Restoration Comedy that would speak directly to the social dynamics of our time in order to both reflect and critique the world we live in today.

As I wrote and rewrote and rewrote The Millennial Malcontent, I got further and further from the original play. I changed the genders of most of the characters, chose a different protagonist, put the characters in situations that would...