Bodies, form and nature: three Canadian plays and reproductive choice in the 1990s

Abstract

This article will deal with the ways in which three contemporary English-Canadian women playwrights have explored issues of reproductive choice in their creative work. In Susan G. Cole's comedy A Fertile Imagination, a lesbian couple attempts to have a child through artificial insemination. In Linda Griffiths' intimate character study The Darling Family, subtitled 'a duet for three', a couple grapples with the implications of an abortion. Deanne Taylor's musical fantasy, 2nd Nature, positions a woman's experience of her body and childbearing capacity as a force opposed to industrialized urban life. Despite the fact that all three of these plays deal with 'real' issues, it is not surprising that their authors have stayed away from traditional theatrical realism. In these three plays, the authors are attempting to make the audience look at 'nature' in a new way, and each is well aware that experiments with form will be the most important means of achieving a fresh perspective.