This Friday, a new play opens at the Chemainus Theatre Festival that explores the lives of five women during World War II.
Waiting for the Parade is a series of 1940s–era vignettes about five Calgary women who strive to make the best of things, or simply make it through things, on the home front during the Second World War.
The dramatic comedy, written by John Murrell, runs Friday, May 9 to Sunday, June 1 at the Chemainus Theatre Festival.
Based on interviews Murrell conducted in the 1970s, the play reveals a complex wartime society, spanning the years 1940 to 1945, when the world consisted of hope and fear, laughter and despair. Bringing the powerful mix of emotions to life, director Colleen Winton deftly combines the play’s comic moments with its more moving and poignant passages.
“Murrell’s beautiful play reminds us that the wounded are not always at the Front, and that heroes can be found at home,” Winton said in a press release.
The five stories are delivered in a series of 24 crisscrossing vignettes that are about diverse individuals, while collectively portraying the most common struggles and experiences. The themes are presented through the lives of five women.
Catherine (Cailin Stadnyk), who seeks distraction while her husband is overseas, and finds it in moonshine and men to cope with loneliness, fear and exhaustion as his absence lengthens.
Margaret (Patti Allan) has nothing in life but pickles, preserves, and prickliness as one son stands on the battle grounds in Europe, and the other sits in jail for spreading Communist propaganda.
Janet (Sylvia Zaradic) is a drill sergeant at home, but neither her overcompensating militancy nor volunteer patriotism can bring her husband to enlist — a shame she can’t seem to quell.
Eve’s (Samantha Currie) only interest is ignoring her flag-waving husband, and keeping her Grade 12 boys from enlisting — or dreaming of her favourite film actor.
Marta (Colleen Lornie) may have been a German immigrant since age nine, but she still faces frightening harassment while her father is interned as a spy.
Tickets can be reserved online at www.chemainustheatre.ca or by calling 1-800-565-7738.
