The East End Plays: Part 2

Where is the East End? It's where the sun comes up and where you bury the dead. It's where George Walker set six of his plays. It's the East End of Toronto; the Lower East Side of New York; down by the East River; East L.A.; East Vancouver. It's where you get down to the basics of beginnings and endings, and how you get from each of those ends to the other. It's where Walker's settings have "come home." From his offer of tenuous hope to the denizens of a city salvaged from the powerful and the greedy in Beautiful City (1987); to his championing of women in Love and Anger (1989); to his explorations of sex and gender issues among three young people in Tough! (1993), Walker continues his explorations of characters living in extremity in the arena of a political comedy uniquely his own.