Cake

By Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Nikki Shaffeeullah and Kern Albert

A man earns. However little, however nefariously, he earns.

Oba, a middle-aged businessman, is torn between his pride and dignity. He’s obsessed with making deals in unidentified substances to stay afloat. A powerful client named Araf arrives, interested in Oba’s business, but also his fierce, inherited servant Femi. Oba’s young progeny Mabo is hungry and desperate, but still driven by his skills and sympathetic to the needs of others.

In this stark and poetic musing on the nature and poisons of survival, Cake humanizes the dynamic between Niger and Iran and their clandestine trade in uranium, presenting a dark and critical look at oppression, consumerism, and what happens when all of our resources are dried up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Apr 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781770919723

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, agitator, and practitioner of humanitarian arts. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Bilguisa Speaks Up, Diggers, Conjugal, Hunt/Peck, and The First Stone. She is a contributor to The Only Good Indian (Jiv Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis/Pandemic Theatre), Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera), and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). Other theatre works include Reaching For Starlight, They Say He Fell, and The Final Inquiry. She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of Refractions: Solo (2014) and Refractions: Scenes (2020) and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays (2018), all published with Playwrights Canada Press.

Book preview

9781770919709.jpg

Also by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

Gas Girls

Indian Act: Residential School Plays (editor)

A Man A Fish

Refractions: Scenes (editor with Yvette Nolan)

Refractions: Solo (editor with Yvette Nolan)

Cake

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

Cake © Copyright 2019 by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard

First edition: March 2019

Cover art, Slip Into Still Waters, by Mary Wong, www.marywong.ca

Author photo © Denise Grant

Playwrights Canada Press

202-269 Richmond St. W., Toronto, ON M5V 1X1

416.703.0013 :: [e-mail] :: www.playwrightscanada.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright,

www.accesscopyright.ca.

For professional or amateur production rights, please contact:

Michael Petrasek, Kensington Literary Representation

34 St. Andrew Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1K6

416.848.9648, [e-mail]

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Cake / by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.

Names: St. Bernard, Donna-Michelle, author.

Description: First edition. | A play.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190058382 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190058404 | ISBN 9781770919709 (softcover) | ISBN 9781770919716 (PDF) | ISBN 9781770919723 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781770919730 (Kindle)

Classification: LCC PS8637.A4525 C35 2019 | DDC C812/.6 — dc23

Playwrights Canada Press acknowledges that we operate on land, which, for thousands of years, has been the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, Métis, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Today, this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and play here.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts — which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country — the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

The Canada Council for the ArtsThe Government of CanadaOntario CreatesThe Ontario Arts Council

To the front-line folx at organizations like Social Action (saction.org) and Afrika Arts Kollective (@afrikaartskolle), who move with integrity toward a better way to be, together. To Mom, Kern and great God Almighty for contantly holding me up in this work.

Contents

Foreword by Nikki Shaffeeullah

Characters

Cake

Moonsong

Quo

Set-up

Tease

Company

Waste

Interest

Femifore

Engagement

Anything?

Delivery

Tease

Advancement

Counsel

Token

Intervention

Snitch

Entrenchment

Embargo

The Moral Is

Capitulation

Afterword by Kern Albert

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Landmarks

Cover

Title

Copyright Page

Dedication

Start of Text

Table of Contents

Foreword by Nikki Shaffeeullah

Moonsong

Quo

Set-up

Tease

Company

Waste

Interest

Femifore

Engagement

Anything?

Delivery

Tease

Advancement

Counsel

Token

Intervention

Snitch

Entrenchment

Embargo

The Moral Is

Capitulation

Afterword by Kern Albert