Cold Comfort: a play of love & bondage is the third in a quartet of plays that Jim Garrard calls “Bondage Plays for My Country.” The play could take place anywhere along the Trans-Canada Highway, but it happens to be set in Saskatchewan, the geographic centre of the country. There are three characters in the play: Dolores, a fifteen-year-old girl who wants to know more about the world than what the window and the household TV can tell her; Floyd, her father, with whom she lives in an abandoned service station, whose paternal misdeeds form the sinister backdrop for the play’s action; and Stephen, the proverbial travelling salesman, who unwittingly stumbles into this complex relationship and finally becomes victim to it. Cold Comfort was first produced by 25th Street Theatre in Saskatoon; then at the Salon Theatre at the Toronto Theatre Festival. It was revived in Toronto by Theatre Passe Muraille; and has been produced in Vancouver at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

Jim Garrard
Jim Garrard was born in Northern Ontario in 1939. He was founding Artistic Director of Theatre Passe Muraille and President of Rochdale College. He has taught theatre at Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto and has written extensively for film and television. His play, Cold Comfort, was released as a feature film film by Northstar Entertainment. He is currently the Artistic Director of Salon Theatre Productions and Director of the Kingston Summer Festival.

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“Sheer Genius.”
— Arts National, CBC Radio

“A remarkable achievement…a solid and memorable show.”
— Toronto Star