The lives and loves of five women who are keeping the home fires burning during the Second World War will be revealed in Central Alberta Theatre’s season-opening play, Waiting for the Parade.
The dinner theatre production that opens on Friday, Oct. 1, isn’t a farce or comedy like most plays at the Black Knight Inn. It’s a smartly-written drama with many humorous moments, said Greg Clark, a first-time CAT director, who has 30 years of community theatre experience in Drumheller.
The retired drama teacher mostly appreciates that the Governor General Award-winning script by John Murrell is relatable and honest.
In Waiting for the Parade, five Calgary women respond very differently to civilian life during the war, providing a portrait of Canadian society in the 1940s.
Catherine is a housewife who takes a canteen job at a munitions factory and finds her heart wandering while her husband is fighting in Europe.
Margaret has two adult sons — one who’s serving overseas and one who joins the Communist Party and is jailed as an anti-war agitator. She believes both are lost to her.
For Janet, whose radio-host hubby avoids active service by working for the CBC, the war becomes an opportunity to release her inner general — much to the annoyance of the other women she bullies and orders around.
Eve, a young school teacher, tries to keep her students from enlisting and despises the militaristic posturing of her much older husband.
Marta is a German-born shopkeeper who emigrated to Alberta as a child, yet faces bigoted comments from fellow Canadians. She is saddened when her German-speaking father is put into an internment camp as a suspected spy.
In 24 short scenes and monologues, the play shows how the war shaped the mindsets of various Canadian women.
Remarkably, the script was written by an American, said Clark, who noted that Murrell was born in Texas and had moved to Calgary less than a decade before creating Waiting for the Parade in 1977 after interviewing local women about their wartime experiences.
“I don’t know how he did it,” said Clark, who praises the playwright for showing tremendous insight, as well as attention to Canadian detail.
Waiting for the Parade contains all kinds of Canadian references to things such as corvettes, or anti-submarine boats, off the coast of Nova Scotia. Eve is among those who are disappointed when Prime Minister William Mackenzie King reneges on a promise and resorts to conscription to pad the soldiers’ ranks.
“It’s a wonderful piece of theatre — I adore it,” said the play’s stage manager Carole Forhan, who once acted as Margaret under Clark’s direction in Drumheller. She admitted she shamelessly lobbied until he agreed to direct the play again in Red Deer.
Waiting for the Parade will include some wartime songs and even a few versions of the Lindy Hop dance.
The play runs to Oct. 31. Dinner is at 6 p.m. and the curtain is at 8 p.m. (Sunday brunch at noon, curtain at 1:45 p.m.) Tickets are $59 from the Black Knight Ticket Centre.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com