Blood Relations and Other Plays

This new collection brings together the early stage works that made Sharon Pollock a leading figure in Canadian theatre. The title play centres on Lizzie Borden, the woman accused of a notorious double killing in Massachusetts, and on the pressures she faced within her household. Other pieces follow prisoners held in a confined place and a young woman bound to a rum runner. Across the volume, Pollock writes about people with little power and the ways society, family and circumstance hem them in. Each script stands alone, but read together they show a steady concern with who gets to speak and who is silenced.