Tom Walmsley rocked the theatre world with The Jones Boy and Something Red, two brutally honest portrayals of life on the edge. And the two plays share something else extraordinary: they’re Canadian classics that remain as sharp and exciting today as the day they premiered. Something Red begins as a friendly evening of Scrabble…and turns into a nightmare. Bobby and Christine live downstairs from their friends Alex and Elizabeth. Bobby is a poet with a shady past, and, afraid he#146;s being targeted by a variety of vicious people, he’s afraid to leave the apartment. His girlfriend, stuck in a deadndash;end job, struggles with her own demons. Alex, who has in the past been Bobby’s partner in crime, now wants to settle down, and is even working on a novel. But the catalyst for catastrophe is Elizabeth. She’s a student, from money, who confesses to a taste for Bobby’s dark side. When this revelation explodes into the open, the scene is set for a second act filled with vengeance, violence, and unbearable suspense. Ahead of its time, Something Red influenced a generation of playwrights, and transformed Canadian theatre as we know it.
Set in a squalid apartment in the late 1970s in East Vancouver, The Jones Boy centres on two couples: Lee and Carol, who share the onendash;room flat with Lee’s sister Sally and exndash;convict Wayne. Lee, Wayne, and Sally are all junkies, and the two girls turn tricks to get money for heroin. But that’s only part of the story. As the play unfolds we come to know the four as a sex/drugs/rock'n'roll version of the dysfunctional family?with Wayne trying to goad his buddy into helping him kinfe a local dealer so they can steal the stash, Lee being eaten alive by jealousy over his lover’s johns, and Carol trying desperately to hang on to the man she loves. When Carol brings a drunk trick back to the apartment, events escalate out of control…and lead to a shocking climax.
