Month: May 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

Here is a selection of new and updated titles in our catalogue featuring more from the National Film Board  as well as a rich collection of print material mostly related Irish theatre recently donated to the library.

 A capital plan /National Film Board of Canada. Ottawa, a capital city that grew without direction, is laid out afresh by an expert town planner. Tourists, diplomats and trade experts, walking in the shadow of the Peace Tower, see the historic Rideau Canal and the swimming and skiing facilities close to Ottawa’s centre. But they see, too, the cluttered buildings, the traffic bottlenecks, and the smoke from the cross-town tracks. To make Ottawa a city fit to be Canada’s capital, Jacques Gréber laid out ‘a capital plan.’ With tracks moved, factories relocated, and neighbourhoods redesigned as separate communities, Ottawa becomes a capital city of true beauty and dignity.

 A century of Irish drama: widening the stage /edited by Stephen Watt, Eileen Morgan, and Shakir Mustafa. This book traces a significant shift in 20th century Irish theatre from the largely national plays produced in Dublin to a more expansive international art form. Confirmed by the recent success outside of Ireland of the “third wave” of Irish playwrights writing in the 1990s, the new Irish drama has encouraged critics to reconsider both the early national theatre and the dramatic tradition it fostered.

 Billy Bishop goes to war: a play /by John Gray, with Eric Peterson.  Billy Bishop Goes to War ranks as one of Canada’s most successful and endearing musical dramas in history. The Governor General’s Award-winning musical documents the glorious World War I exploits of Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop.

By the Bog of Cats … /Marina Carr. Set in the mysterious landscape of the bogs of rural Ireland, Carr’s lyrical and timeless play tells the story of Hester Swane, an Irish traveller with a deep and unearthly connection to her land. Tormented by the memory of a mother who deserted her, Hester is once again betrayed, this time by the father of her child, the man she loves. On the brink of despair, she embarks on a terrible journey of vengeance as the secrets of her tangled history are revealed.

 Camera test /directed by Joyce Wong ; produced by Justine Pimlott, Anita Lee ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). Pairing intimate interviews with absurdist re-enactments, Joyce Wong crafts a tartly subversive look at patriarchy and racism in the film industry.

 Canada at war. Part 2, Blitzkrieg /produced by Stanley Clish, Donald Brittain, Peter Jones ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). April – November 1940. With devastating speed Germany takes Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Italy declares war. The British withdraw from Dunkirk. Mackenzie King feels the Canadian pulse on conscription. England is strafed by the Luftwaffe, and Britons accept Churchill’s challenge of “blood, sweat and tears.”.

 Canada in World War One /produced by Tim Wilson, Frank Spiller ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada. Canada’s role in the Allied Forces during the conflict is explored in this film, showing the brutal realities of trench warfare experienced by Canadian troops. These years of enemy bombings and shooting, left some 60, 000 soldiers dead.

 Canada vignettes: dance /directed by Lise-Hélène Larin ; produced by David Verrall, Derek Lamb ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). The metamorphosis of a map of Canada into human forms who share the natural resources to the rhythm of a dance.

Canada vignettes: June in Povungnituk : Quebec Arctic /directed by Alanis Obomsawin ; produced by Robert Verrall ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). On a beautiful summer’s day in Nunavik, a family enjoys the pleasures of berry picking and fishing as the sound of two Elders throat-singing fills the environment.

 Canada vignettes: log driver’s waltz /directed by John Weldon ; produced by David Verrall, Derek Lamb ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal. This lighthearted, animated tale is based on the song The Log Driver’s Waltz by Wade Hemsworth. Kate and Anna McGarrigle sing to the music of the Mountain City Four.

 Canada vignettes: logger /directed by Al Sens ; produced by Peter Jones, Robert Verrall ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). An animated history of logging on the British Columbia coast.

Canada vignettes: men of the deeps, Cape Breton /directed by Sandra Dudley ; produced by Dorothy Courtois, Peter Katadotis ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). A vignette of coal mines in New Waterford and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, featuring traditional Cape Breton folk songs sung by Men of the Deeps, a miners’ choral group.

 Canada vignettes: onions and garlic : a Hebrew fable /directed by Eva Szasz ; produced by Andy Thomson, Robert Verrall, Floyd Elliott ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). An animated film of an old Hebrew fable.

Canadian landscape /National Film Board of Canada. We accompany A.Y. Jackson on painting trips by canoe and on foot to the northern wilderness of Canada in autumn. He discusses his approach to his subject matter, and shows some of his paintings.

 Canadian screen magazine. No. 4 /production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Ottawa). Big Liz Brings Home 12 000 Happy Canadians: Canadian soldiers return home from Europe on the S.S. Queen Elizabeth. Troop Carrier to Airliner: Military aircraft are converted for use as commercial airplanes. B.C. Salmon Run: Commercial salmon fishing and processing in British Columbia is shown. Vets Regain Efficiency with Artificial Limbs: Rehabilitation programs for Canadian veterans allow them to become proficient in the use of artificial limbs. Students Produce Art China in New Industry: In Woodstock, Ontario, high school students participate in local ceramic-ware production.

 Canadians advance near Cambrai. 3 /production agencies: Ministry of Information (London), Canadian War Records Office (London). The devastating effects of shelling. Firemen, soldiers and civilians fight several fires in a village, brick buildings are reduced to rubble, and a water tank in a factory is totally destroyed.

 Caninabis /directed by Kaj Pindal ; produced by Gaston Sarault ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). Caninabis is an animated film about a dog whose brilliant career on the drug squad collapses when he mistakes a truckload of fertilizer for marijuana, causing an uncalled-for “bust.” He is the victim of “burn-out,” brought on by protracted smoking of drugs. The film’s message is clear: smoking marijuana is definitely not good for dogs. Film without words.

 Canon /directed by Norman McLaren, Grant Munro ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). McLaren and Munro use three different animation techniques to provide visual representations of canons in a film designed to teach viewers about this ancient musical form. The soundtrack combines both recorded classical music and sounds produced by a synthesizer.

 Capturing reality: the art of documentary /directed by Pepita Ferrari ; produced by Michelle van Beusekom ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). From cinema-vérité pioneers Albert Maysles, Joan Churchill and Michel Brault to maverick moviemakers like Errol Morris and Nick Broomfield — some of the doc world’s brightest lights reflect upon the unique power of the genre in Capturing Reality. Articulate and entertaining, provocative and thoughtful — the remarkable cast includes such luminaries as Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, the innovative British director Kim Longinotto and Alanis Obomsawin — the First Lady of First Nations cinema. Studded throughout are intimate interviews with 33 directors and clips from over 50 films — classics such as Grey Gardens and The Thin Blue Line, as well as such arresting recent work as Darwin’s Nightmare and The Day I Will Never Forget, offering insight into various aspects of the complex creative process. Provocative pranksters, courageous activists and consummate storytellers — directors discuss the multiple creative choices involved in making documentary cinema.

Caregivers. Episode four, Pat and Molly /directed by Dan Curtis ; produced by Adam Symansky, Don Haig ; production agency: National Film Board of Canada (Montreal). When she was a student nurse, Pat Tucker received training in bedside care. Today, she puts those skills to good use in caring for her mother who requires round-the-clock attention. Produced with the help of individual caregivers and community agencies across Canada, this is a “how-to” series with soul.

 Far from the land: new Irish plays /foreword by Sebastian Barry ; edited and introduced by John Fairleigh. A startling collection of plays by playwrights working in the north and south of Ireland, all of which have been groundbreaking events in contemporary Irish theatre.

Heroines: three plays /John Murrell, Sharon Pollock, Michel Tremblay ; edited by Joyce Doolittle. Three of Canada’s most distinguished playwrights – Tremblay, Pollock and Murrell – depict vivid manifestations of the feminine.

 Jennie’s story ; & Under the skin /Betty Lambert. Winner of the 1983 Chalmers Canadian Play Award, Jennie’s Story is set in the late 1930s on the Canadian prairies. It concerns the Sexual Sterilization Act  allowing a sterilization procedure to be performed without consent on individuals that were deemed to be unfit or mentally challenged. Jennie McGrane takes the title role, and her discovery of what the priest Father Fabrizeau has done to her is the central drama of the play. Believing she had an appendectomy when she was a teenager, the truth is revealed when she’s unable to conceive. In Under the Skin, Emma, the twelve-year-old daughter of Maggie Benton, has disappeared. John and Renee Gifford, Maggie’s neighbours and friends, attempt to console her, but their own ominous behaviour makes this a cold comfort.

Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish popular theater /Stephen Watt. This study explores Ireland’s late 19th-century popular theater and its impact on the works of two of its major writers, James Joyce and Sean O’Casey. Employing the strategies of Marxist cultural analysis and the “New Historicism,” Watt recreates a seldom-discussed aspect of Irish popular culture and assesses its contribution to various political and social discourses in turn-of- the-century Dublin.

 Livingstone /Tim Jeal. Teal draws on fresh sources to provide the most fully rounded portait yet of this complicated man, dogged for years by private and public failure despite his full share of success.

Making sense of the journey: the geography of our faith : Mennonite stories integrating faith and life and the world of thought /edited by Robert Lee and Nancy V. Lee ; foreword by Loren E. Swartzendruber. The Mennonite writers of this book were Depression-era babies who amid experiencing World War II, the Korean, Vietnam, and the Cold wars, helped Eastern Mennonite College and North American Mennonites develop more global perspectives and commitments.

 North ; also, Soldiers ; Act of union ; Mary’s men: four plays /by Seamus Finnegan.

Ourselves alone /by Anne Devlin. Three women in Belfast dream of escaping the political peril that marks their lives, but cannot because of the family loyalties instilled in them and their complicated relationships with men.

 Plays–one /Enda Walsh ; with a foreword by the author.  The first eight astonishing plays by Enda Walsh, ‘one of the most dazzling wordsmiths of contemporary theatre’ . Bursting onto the theatre scene in 1996 with Disco Pigs, Enda Walsh has delivered a sustained fusillade of strikingly original plays ever since. This volume, with a Foreword by the author, contains: The Ginger Ale Boy about a Cork cabaret about a ventriloquist who loses control. Disco Pigs , his breakthrough play, that ‘does for Irish kids what Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting did for young Scots’. Misterman  in which we meet Thomas Magill on his obsessive mission to bring God to the townsfolk of Inishfree. bedbound, his Fringe First Award-winning play, in which a father and daughter are trapped in their own compulsive and claustrophobic story. The Small Things, a ‘harrowingly precise and poetic’ exploration of language and our need for words to survive. Chatroom, a chilling tale of teenage manipulation. Also included are two previously unpublished short plays, How These Desperate Men Talk and Lynndie’s Gotta Gun , written during Walsh’s time working with European theatremakers.

 The beauty queen of Leenane and other plays /Martin McDonagh. These three plays are set in a town in Galway so blighted by rancor, ignorance, and spite that, as the local priest complains, God Himself seems to have no jurisdiction there. The Beauty Queen of Leenane portrays ancient, manipulative Mag and her virginal daughter, Maureen, whose mutual loathing may be more durable than any love. In A Skull in Connnemara, Mick Dowd is hired to dig up the bones in the town churchyard, some of which belong to his late and oddly unlamented wife. And the brothers of The Lonesome West have no sooner buried their father than they are resuming the vicious and utterly trivial quarrel that has been the chief activity of their lives.

 The Canadian pavilion, Expo 67 /National Film Board of Canada. The visit to the Canadian Pavilion at Expo 67 highlights Canada’s natural resources and advances in technology and science.

 The canoe /National Film Board of Canada. Utilizing engineering ingenuity that is centuries old, Atikamekw elders Agatha and Cézar Néwashish build a small-scale version of a birch-bark canoe. With their expert hands, a stunning work of art is created

The cemetery of Europe: The Spanish play, The German connection, The Murphy girls: three plays /by Seamus Finnegan.

 The custom of the country /John Fletcher and Philip Massinger ; this edition prepared by Nick de Somogyi. This 17th-century play by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger traces the fortunes of two brothers shipwrecked in a foreign land. By turns poignant and risqué, sentimental and satirical, its beautifully crafted plot embodies the collaborative art of its authors.

The field, and other Irish plays /John B. Keane. The Field, Sive, & Big Maggie portray ordinary people confronting change in modern Ireland.

 The Gigli concert /by Tom Murphy. ‘One of the greatest Irish plays of the century’ (Irish Times.)  Murphy’s gift – here and in his other plays – is at once to stimulate and destabilise. It’s a thrilling and intense experience to sit in a theatre and hardly to know where you are or that anything exists beyond the stage in front of you. This is a dark, funny, consuming evening of high points, breaking points, hangovers and hints – uncertain hints – of hope’ (Observer)”

 The magnificent voyage of Emily Carr /Jovette Marchessault, translated by Linda Gaboriau. Emily Carr lived in a magical place that she had christened The House of All Sorts. In this house ,Carr, with all her greatness and her imperfections, receives visitors

The matrix of Christian ethics: integrating philosophy and moral theology in a postmodern context /Patrick Nullens & Ronald T. Michener.  This book begins to delve into this relevant and contemporary subject through methodological reflection on the commands, purposes, values, and virtues of Christian life in today”s context. To address these factors, an integrative approach to ethics is proposed, borrowing from classical ethical models such as consequential ethics, principle ethics, virtue ethics, and value ethics. This is what the authors call a matrix of Christian ethics.   It concludes with some practically oriented guidelines to help the reader consider contemporary ethical questions and conflicts within a framework of biblical wisdom, in view of the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of followers of Christ.

The Melville boys /Norm Foster. Two men arrive at their cabin in the woods for a weekend of drinking and fishing. The arrival of two sisters changes everything.

The mousetrap: a play in two acts /by Agatha Christie.

The Oxford history of Ireland /edited by R.F. Foster.  This volume captures all the varied legacies of the Emerald Isle, from the earliest prehistoric communities and the first Christian settlements, through the centuries of turbulent change and creativity, right up to the present day. Written by a team of scholars–all of whom are native to Ireland–this book offers the most authoritative account of Irish history yet published for the general reader.

 The Pillowman /Martin McDonagh. A writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders that are happening in his town.

 The steward of Christendom /Sebastian Barry. The play that established Barry as one of Ireland”s most powerful contemporary playwrights. Thomas Dunne, ex-chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan police looks back on his career built during the latter years of Queen Victoria”s empire, from his home in Baltinglass in Dublin in 1932. Like King Lear, Dunne tries valiantly to break free of history and himself.