What a Young Wife Ought to Know: Affecting period piece which gets to the heart of the matter
Reviewed at the Grand Theatre in Kingston, ON
Though an exploration of women’s lives in 1920s Ottawa, Hannah Moscovitch’s What a Young Wife Ought to Know is not a play for the idle history buff. Rather this exploration is a visceral and sometimes discomforting one, as Moscovitch exposes the struggles many working-class women faced without control of their reproduction. The production of the play by Theatre Kingston, directed by the company’s own artistic director Rosemary Doyle, to its credit does not shy away from depicting this reality, hard as some moments may be to watch. The power of this production not only comes from its honest portrayal of the events in the script, but also the fully-realized character portrayals by the actors which make the struggles of the play’s protagonist, Sophie, and her conflicts with her husband and deceased sister thoroughly compelling. …