About the Play:
Of all our contemporary urban myths none is more absurd than the fiction of the classless society, and Morris Panych's comedy penetrates ruthlessly to the shock and horror of the residue of hardened pesto soiling its porcelain heart.
Haplessly determined to have his own miserable authority vindicated, chief dishwasher Dressler presides over the steam-choked basement of an up-scale restaurant, a place of seamless existential drudgery so utterly remote from the light of day that its wage-slaves have no contact with anyone outside. Spouting an indiscriminate cornucopia of working-class ethic, an interminable babble of pride of craft, Marxist rhetoric and the virtues of individual entrepreneurship as celebrated by Ayn Rand, Dressler tyrannizes his co-workers relentlessly.
Unfortunately, both the old hand Moss and the new guy Emmett fail utterly to see things his way as they stubbornly and inexplicably pursue both their rejection of and aspiration to join the folks upstairs.
What people say:
"This microcosm of society at large is a brilliant and fascinating portrait of class as it exists at every level, even the relatively invisible." — Curled up with a Good Book
"A big existential present lovingly packaged in grease and suds… An anti-holiday antidote for those who take their humour black." — Hour
About the Playwright:
Morris Panych was born in 1952 in Calgary. He grew up in Edmonton and has since lived in Toronto and Vancouver. After receiving a diploma in radio and television arts from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Panych continued his education by studying creative writing at the University of British Columbia and then theatre at East 15 Acting School in London, England.
Panych is a playwright, actor and director who has been described as "a man for all seasons in Canadian theatre." He wrote his first play, Last Call: a Postnuclear Cabaret in 1982. He has written over a dozen plays that have been produced across Canada, the United States and Britain. As an actor, he has appeared in over fifty theatre productions and several film and television roles, including X-files.
He has won the Jessie Richardson Theatre Award fourteen times for acting and directing. He has also been awarded five Dora Mavor Moore Award and been nominated three times for the Chalmers Award. Panych has won the Governor General's Literary Award for drama twice. He is also a three time winner of the Sidney Riske Writing Awards.
Panych's plays generally explore philosophical issues such as human relationships, the nature of good and evil, and explore shifting between fantasy and reality. They are often characterized by dark humor.