Relative Good

Montreal playwright David Gow’s newest play, Relative Good, seems to be ripped from the headlines with its ironic, blood-chilling investigation of how easy it is to lose one’s rights in a post 9/11 world. A Canadian citizen of Middle-East heritage is detained while transferring between flights at JFK airport in New York. The Canadian consular officials cannot (or will not) facilitate his release or even gain due process for their fellow countryman, and the man’s fate is increasingly caught up in a Kafkaesque morass of security law-language and a byzantine Department of External affairs.

Relative Good puts a very real and personal face on the political issue of detention certificates and portrays the fears, agonies and lack of humanity experienced by the family of a man branded by his name and racial profile.