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The Russian Play and Other Short Works

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Four short plays by one of Canada’s exciting, new theatre voices. In The Russian Play, the flower-shop girl tells the story of her love for the gravedigger. Essay casts a teaching assistant in the shadow of his professor as they argue the merits of a female student’s paper. In USSR, a young woman relates her journey to Canada from Russia, and Mexico City follows Henry and Alice on their vacation in 1960. These four plays bring each character to life in full colour, jumping off the page before you and onto the stage.

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2009

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About the author

Hannah Moscovitch

17 books22 followers

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5 stars
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30 (46%)
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13 (20%)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Profile Image for Amanda.
69 reviews
August 20, 2020
The Russian Play:
Is exactly how I remembered it when I saw it at the Shaw Festival. It was equally heartbreaking etremely moving. It was a comforting trip down memory lane and is exactly why I love Canadian theatre.

I love how it plays into the tropes of classic russian plays of the 1800s while also reinventing them and flipping them on it's head. The writing is poetic which suits the romantic love story that it is telling.

Essay:
Is an interesting take on the roles of women in history on how they percieved and represented.
The representation of teacher, TA and student heirarchy exemplifies who really has the power. How people's decisions and opinions are influenced based their status and lived experiences.
I also love how it displays the role of the emerging feminist and how she came to that conclusion.

USSR:
Was intense and very short.
I love how the writer can produce such intensity in a 5 pages.
Its a monologue, so you only hear the single sided perspective of Elena and her experience of emigrating to Canada and missing her home country.

Mexico City:
Is an interesting approach to telling a story in a he said/she style. Of them all this was my least favourite because the story was being told verse being shown as if the audience is hearing a story from a person's vacation.
Profile Image for Lucas.
186 reviews13 followers
April 17, 2017
Hannah Moscovitch is one of Canada's great working playwrights, and it's fascinating (maddening?) to read her strikingly assured early works. The short plays in this book are occasionally stagey and some of the passages (including nearly all of "Mexico City") feel like studies in form and style rather than narrative pieces, but younger Moscvitch has the same gift for beguiling, sympathetic monologuists which makes the very tiny little book a lovely read.
Profile Image for Anya.
331 reviews6 followers
March 5, 2024
read essay & Mexico City for english class, they were…. interesting and frustrating.
Profile Image for Robyn Moore.
31 reviews
October 31, 2024
Have to write an essay on this play so yup you bet I’m logging it ✌️
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews

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