Odd Ducks Front Cover

Paperback / softback
ISBN: 9780889229341
Pages: 128
Pub. Date: April 27 2015
Dimensions: 8.5" x 5.5" x 0.5"
Rights: Available: WORLD
Categories
Drama / DRA013000

  • DRAMA / Canadian

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Odd Ducks

By Bryden MacDonald

Welcome to the small town of Tartan Cross, Nova Scotia, where skeletons rattle in closets and past histories are so intertwined that the lives of four fortysomething, eccentric characters have become so complicated that something needs to change. In the comedy, Odd Ducks, award-winning playwright Bryden MacDonald positions his four characters at the brink of existential angst – and the action unfolds from there.

At the centre of the drama is Ambrose, an irredeemable reprobate and the type of guy who rants philosophically at the bar while mooching beer from his friends. He’s a narcissist who thinks he’s God’s gift to women. And he’s having an affair with Mandy Menzies, a charming and beautiful brunette who was the high school beauty queen but is now stuck in a marriage of convenience and a life of boredom. Her housekeeper, Estelle Carmichael, has seen it all, but her prickly exterior belies a loving heart. The dryly funny Freddy Durdle is the perfect counter-balance to over-the-top Ambrose.

All four oddballs seem stuck in their lives, but searing sarcasm relieves the boredom and crazy, everyday dramas aid their struggle to move on and keep things light.

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

Short-listed 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama

Odd Ducks is a tragedy that is essentially a comedy because really, without comedy, nothing can be taken seriously … The writing sizzles and sings … the play builds to a great finish.”
Chronicle Herald (Halifax)

“The dialogue is snappy, the laughs are frequent.”
The Coast (Halifax)