On the Job

It is Christmas Eve, 1970. In the shipping room of a Montreal dress factory, the workers get drunk and decide to go on strike.

"So many of the guys I knew on the street are gone dead or crazy, man. There's no escape. This whole country is just one big factory, one big jail, Billy ... Either you're a good nigger or ya die. Know what I mean? ... Black, yellow, white. We're all niggers down on Rockefeller's 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 don't give a damn."

On the Job is David Fennario's 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.


About the Author

David Fennario
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.