Mary’s Wedding: A popular choice given a production that pulls the play in two different directions

Photo  Wendy Wagner

You can  never forget your first love, even on the eve of your wedding to someone else. This is the starting point of Stephen Massicotte’s Mary’s Wedding.  Set in 1920, the drama is part love story and part history of one of the lesser-known battles of the First World War.

On the night before her wedding, Mary is dreaming of Charlie, the farmboy who went off to ride into the jaws of death. Still filled with regret that she was too angry at his leaving to join the war effort to say a proper goodbye, she must come to terms with the past before she can embrace her future.

A decade after its first performance at Calgary’s Alberta Theatre Projects, Mary’s Wedding (now also an opera) remains a popular choice for theatres across North America and the UK around Remembrance Day. Poetic and often poignant as Massicotte’s writing is, the play exhibits some awkwardness in places. For example, the opening sequence, in which Charlie speaks directly to the audience to explain that they are about to see the reenactment of a dream, is discomfiting, rather than helpful.

In the Kanata Theatre production, director Wendy Wagner has chosen to mix realism and symbolism. While the justification for this is the dream setting, it is difficult to accept a wooden structure (a carpenter’s wooden horse) with reins as a horse or to feel comfortable with the two actors riding or caressing it, particularly with the sounds of war in the background and realistic illustrations on a nearby screen.

Then there is the matter of Mary’s costuming. It is reasonable that she should wear her nightgown as she is dreaming, but it is hard to accept her other character — Charlie’s sergeant in battle — while she is wearing it. Yet, the script requires instant changes between the two personas, so she has no time to change anything but her voice. (Other productions that I have seen have outfitted her in normal street dress and have made it clearer that her change of character is part of her repeating sequences from Charlie’s letters.)

Emily Walsh as Mary and Nicholas Maillet as Charlie bring considerable charm, as well as appropriate gawkiness, to their portrayal of the blossoming of first love. In their hands, supported by Rob Mitchell’s music, Mary’s Wedding is more of a love story than a story of war, despite the sights and sounds of battle supplied by Karl Wagner’s lighting and Rob Fairbairn’s soundscape.

Despite some pulling in two different directions, the Kanata Theatre production is an interesting show that is definitely worth a visit. Mary’s Wedding continues at Kanata Theatre to November 17

Mary’s Wedding

By Stephen Massicotte

Kanata Theatre

Director: Wendy Wagner

Set and Lighting: Karl Wagner

Sound: Robert Fairbairn

Costumes: Sandy Wynne

Cast:

Mary…………………………………………Emily Walsh

Charlie………………………………………..Nicholas Maillet