On the Job

“So many of the guys I knew on the street are gone dead or crazy, man. Theres no escape. This whole country is just one big factory, one big jail, Billy … Either youre a good nigger or ya die. Know what I mean? … Black, yellow, white. Were all niggers down on Rockefellers Plantation, man.”

“Punks, Billy. All we get now is punks … I used to have this shipping room running like a new machine, remember, Billy? … No trouble, no fuss, cause everybody did their job and knew their place, but now … In the last five years, the kids been getting more and more like that Gary Boyce. Shit disturbers. They all got that look in their eye. Know what I mean? Like they dont give a damn.”

On the Job is David Fennarios post-mortem on the 60s and a look at the Canadian class structure. The play was first performed at Centaur Theatre, Montreal. Subsequently, it has been performed at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa; been revived by Centaur Theatre; and been staged at the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver.

— Quill and Quire

Anglophone playwright born David Wiper in Montreal, Quebec, 1947. He was raised in the working class district of Pointe-St-Charles, an area he would make the centre of most of his plays.