- Photo: Laani Heinar
Plays featuring all-women casts are few and far between, so it’s a real treat to get to chance to Waiting for the Parade which centres on five strong, small-town Canadian women who are keeping the home fires burning during the Second World War.
Janet (Shoel Strang) is a bossy, abrasive powerhouse who organizes volunteer efforts to compensate for the shame caused by her husband not enlisting. Margaret (Rena Kossatz) is a doom-and-gloom widow who is as much bewildered by her gung-ho soldier son as by her young son who protests war. Eve (Jozel Bennett) is a soft-hearted school teacher married to an older man with a disturbingly distasteful passion for war. Catherine (Christine Daniels) is a lusty young mother trying to fend off loneliness while her husband is overseas. Marta (Colleen MacIsaac) is an outsider to the group — a German immigrant who faces persecution with a stoic air.
The play is a series of vignettes that slowly reveal important details about the lives of these women. Period music is woven throughout to great effect, with a particularly striking and moving rendition of “Lili Marlene” as a real highlight. The set is spare, but several times throughout the play, the actors form striking tableaux that add a visual richness.
While the pace lags in places, patience is rewarded by what ultimately proves to be a poignant snapshot of life on the sidelines of war.
July 10 – 14, 8PM at The Bus Stop theatre
Special Matinee July 13, 2PM
Tickets: $20 General, $15 Student/Senior/Artist
lionsdentheatre@gmail.com
This article appears in Jul 11-17, 2013.