About the Play:

Cruel Tears has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male/Male Scenes.

Cruel Tears is a classic Canadian prairie musical by Ken Mitchell. Love blooms under the Saskatchewan moon for a truck driver and his boss's daughter until jealousy, betrayal and rage drive him down a dangerous road. One of the most original and inventive theatre pieces ever staged in Canada, Cruel Tears is a modern-day musical based on Shakespeare's Othello.

Cruel Tears is about a daring young truck driver who woos his boss's daughter only to find jealousy and betrayal round the bend of a dangerous road. Shakespeare buffs may see the play as a Prairie reinvention of Shakespeare's Othello, but in Cruel Tears, the jealous hero is a Ukrainian truck driver from Saskatoon, not a moor of Venice. Described as a "country opera," Cruel Tears is written in the idiom of country and western music by the Saskatoon group, Humphrey and The Dumptrucks, which from 1967-81 was Canada's best folk-bluegrass-country band.

Cruel Tears premiered in 1975 by at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, where it played to packed houses and critical acclaim during Persephone Theatre's inaugural season. It subsequently played at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and across Canada on a 12-city national tour including the Arts Club in Vancouver in 1978 and was a Finalist for the 1978 Chalmers Award. Since then it has been performed in regional and community theatres.

Cast: 5 female, 10 male, plus a band

What people say:

"Crackling good melodrama… Cruel Tears is both an evocation and a send-up of the simple powers of country and western music." — Globe and Mail

"In a word, it is a delight." — Vancouver Sun

"A unique and astonishing dramatic event." — Calgary Herald

"A brilliantly original theatre piece." — Montreal Star

About the Playwright:

Ken Mitchell is a Canadian poet, novelist and playwright. In a five-decade career, he published six novels and written about two dozen plays. He taught English at the University of Regina for 37 years and retired in 2005 as Professor Emeritus. He became a member of the Order of Canada in 1999; in 2001, he received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, in 2002 the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, and in 2018 the Lieutenant Governors Lifetime Achievement award at the Saskatchewan Arts Awards.