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TAKING LIBERTIES / INTO
Dave Carley
Volume 22 Number 3
Taking Liberties introduces residents of a medium-sized Ontario city over the years from 1955 to 1995. In brief monologues, the characters try to find the way out of a moral dilemma: a Jew feels obliged to defend the rights of a Holocaust-denying high school teacher; a young h usband struggles with his homosexual desires; his friend, a newspaper editor, publishes his name with the others in a police report. The first and last sections, which deal with a female university dean defying affirmative-action hiring policies, provide the key to the inter-relati onships among the characters. Any of these monologues would spark lively discussion of values, among mature teenagers, and a high school student's defence of The Diviners will be popular with theatre arts students. Into maroons stock characters--a nun, a busin essman, a career woman and a young man-in a traffic jam on the 40l that lasts for months, forcing them into an uneasy alliance in the struggle for s urvival. The basic premise is funny, and Carley lampoons social trends with considerable skill, especially in the surprise ending. The dialogue is realistic in today's four-letter fashion, with the nun eas ily winning the foul-mouth sweepstakes. Ironically,  Into provid es librarians with a mild sample of the dilemmas that Dave Carley presents so effectively in Taking Libeties. Grades 12 and up / Ages 17 and upPat Bolger is a retired high school teacher-librarian in Renfrew, Ontario
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