About the Play:

Winner of the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

The Monument is a full-length drama by Colleen Wagner. About a young soldier convicted of war crimes, and a mysterious woman who offers him freedom – at a price. A harrowing and visceral journey of two people forced to confront the atrocities of war; this Governor General's Award-winning play asks questions that remain painfully familiar on our front pages today.

The Monument is the story of a young soldier who has been convicted of war crimes committed during a genocide. Stetko is the model boy next door and the son of middle-class parents, but when war arrives it forever changes his life. Although he does nothing more than follow his commanding officer's orders, when the war is over, he has become the scapegoat for crimes "everyone was doing." As he is about to be executed, a woman from the enemy side who is both his saviour and his tormentor arranges his release, suspecting that he knows the whereabouts of her missing daughter. The Monument poses a timeless moral question: how much choice does a soldier have in wartime? Must he follow orders, do what everyone else is doing? And what of a mother, left to deal with the aftermath of an ethnically-motivated civil war? What choices is she free to make in punishing her child's killer? Which force is greater, love or hate? Part ritual, part myth, part rite of passage, The Monument ultimately chooses redemption and the healing power of love.

The Monument premiered in 1995 at Canadian Stage Company in Toronto. It won the Governor General's Literary Award and has been translated into French, German, Romanian and Mandarin, and has been produced across North America and in Australia, Europe and Beijing – the first commercial production of a Canadian play to be produced in China.

Cast: 1 woman, 1 man

What people say:

"Colleen Wagner's Governor General's Award-winning script is a dark fantasy inspired by the war – or more specifically, the war crimes – in the former Yugoslavia." — The Georgia Straight

"There's a scene near the end of The Monument, Colleen Wagner' searing 1995 drama about wartime atrocities, when a young soldier is forced to remember in detail the 23 women he has raped and murdered…. It's an act of resurrection and reclamation that lies at the heart of Wagner's Governor-General's Award-winning play." — The Globe and Mail

About the Playwright:

Colleen Wagner is a Canadian playwright, film script and short fiction writer. Her first stage play, Sand, was shortlisted for best international play at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England, in 1989. She won the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama for her play The Monument, which was also nominated for a Dora Award. She currently teaches at York University in the Film Department.