“The Workingman, a short piece lasting 35 minutes, manages to pack four twists into the last 15 minutes of a plot which seems to be about three pornographers renting room for their business. But it transpires through some devious logic by Walmsley that what is really happening is that the first two are really cons ripping off the third for the camera equipment. How this is accomplished must not be given away but it is accomplished with some remarkably lucid and tough writing in which Walmsley, through his twisting, gives a stunning example of how elusive it ls to figure out just who has the upper hand.”
— From a review of the Toronto production, by Jack Kapica,
The Globe & Mail, January 21, 1977
“The Workingman is a 35-minute long essay in sadism of the kind glorified by television crime shows. For no clear reason, a young drifter, Gene, plays a cruel, ultimately murderous trick on his pals, Michael and Charlene, who have joined him in a Winnipeg walk-up for a sex orgy. The construction is familiar if skillful, the joke etched in terror, but the result seems to be violence simply for its own sake, and the characters are not people but simply digits to be manipulated to the proper horrible effect.”
— From a review of the Toronto production, by Gina Mallet,
The Toronto Star, January 21, 1977
Download the play as a PDF.
Read Tom talking about the creation of The Workingman here.
TOM WALMSLEY 