This week has three shows, just opened, that are all power pieces written by some of the best playwrights of the last 20 years. It is for this reason all us 'contemporary peeps' can relate and enjoy these plays.

Homebody/Kabul - Tony Kushner's work is already legendary. His two-part masterpiece Angels in America was a huge success and had a TV movie of it made starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino. This one, his newest, stars Fiona Reid as a British woman who disappears while in Afghanistan and the ensuing investigation of that event by family and friends. Runs until June 9th and brought to you by Mercury Theatre.

Collected Stories - I saw this play in New York about ten years ago and it starred the recently deceased theatre giant Uta Hagen in a performance I told her felt, 'like you improvised the whole thing' . The story of an aged successful writer and her protege who eclipses her fame is a great play about age, betrayal, ambition and friendship. It's like a good tennis match! Mea Culpa Productions brings us the story this time, a first in the city, which runs until June 3rd.

Better Living - The Luminato Festival is getting warmed up and the theatre portion of the Festival includes the Walker Project. George F Walker is one of Canada's most successful playwrights and TV writers. His East End Plays, written all in the 1980's, surround a dysfunctional crime family in a hilarious and often touching manor. Better Living explores the return of their father after a long absence. Runs until July 1st in rep with Escape From Happiness at the Factory Theatre

Photo of Fiona Reid in Homebody/Kabul