What a Young Wife Ought to Know

Performance Works to April 1, 2023
Tickets $30 from www.excavationtheatre.com/tickets

Posted March 26, 2023

Not far into Hannah Moscovitch’s 2015 play what a Young Wife Ought to Know, I began to wonder why she wrote it. Set in 1920 in a poor neighbourhood in Ottawa, Moscovitch tells the story of Sophie, her older sister Alma, a chambermaid in a hotel, and handsome stable hand Irish immigrant Jonny. Alma, who whispers advice in Sophie’s ear, is dead, having bled out at home in bed from a botched self-abortion but not before giving advice to 15-year-old Sophie: don’t let a fellow kiss you – especially Jonny – when you’re lying down. What naïve Sophie doesn’t understand right away is that his “trousers” have to be down; just kissing will not put a baby in her belly. But it’s not long before his trousers ARE down, Sophie and Jonny are married and the babies start coming. It’s an old story.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how complacent many Canadian women have become about birth control and abortion and how grateful we should be to (mostly) women who for decades fought hard with various levels of government to gain reproductive agency for all of us. Moscovitch’s play serves as a reminder as well as a cautionary tale: be ever vigilant for, as we see in the USA, that agency can be stripped away; the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court in June 2022 is an example of how powerful the pro-life movement is.

Directed by Jessica Anne Nelson for Excavation Theatre, this is a sweet little production with characters we want to see thrive. Moscovitch’s dialogue feels authentic and honest and is peppered with homespun advice given to Sophie from her Ma like, “There are two types of men: those that leave you and those that you wish would.” Right off the top, the fourth wall is down and Sophie is engaging the audience directly – especially the “ladies” from whom she asks, after having almost burned the prick off Jonny with a concoction of coco butter and something else – probably cayenne – “Is that the kind of birth control YOU use?”

After several pregnancies and a prolapsed uterus, Sophie has been told by doctors she should not risk another pregnancy but Jonny is irresistibly handsome and Sophie loves him and she loves having sex with him. Her doctor, when asked how he and his wife only have two children, he replies, “Separate beds” and “gardening.” But abstinence threatens to destroy Sophie’s marriage and what else is there?

Bronwyn Henderson is Sophie and, by turns, is innocent and wise. When Sophie is fifteen, Henderson is wide-eyed, sexually excited, candid and outspoken. Mature Sophie struggles with keeping Jonny from visiting the prostitutes in the backrooms of the hotel in town and avoiding any more pregnancies. Henderson makes this transition from child to woman seamless and believable. We feel the hopelessness and danger of Sophie’s situation and the choice she must – and does – make. What to do when the cost of a casket is cheaper than keeping a child alive?

Charlotte Wright portrays Alma and it’s a somewhat bewildering role: Alma teases Sophie about her attraction to Jonny while at the same time she’s pregnant with his child. It’s not clear whether she’s really warning Sophie or is trying to keep Jonny to herself in hopes of marriage.

Through no fault of actor Michael Briganti, I found Jonny a little difficult to empathize with. Even when Jonny loses his job and food is scarce, he does not appear to take Sophie’s fear of pregnancy seriously. With no family of his own in Canada, he seems determined to create a large one in his new world – and hang the consequences. Briganti does, however, do a hilarious job of hopping around with his trousers down after experiencing Sophie’s homemade birth control cake or whatever it is she has stuffed ‘up there’.

As for production values: while the sheers draped above the Performance Works playing area are pretty, they don’t really fit with the tenement setting. And I hope it’s safe to assume, the hem on Sophie’s dress was a last minute, unfinished job; it draws attention to itself and is a real distraction. Opening night, not quite ready? Lighting by Victoria Bell is evocative; fight director Mike Kovac makes the couple of slaps look real and painful; and intimacy director Michelle Thorne does such a good job of a kitchen table scene, you almost feel like a perv watching Sophie and Jonny go at it.

Best question Sophie asks the women in the audience: “Are you in the habit of truthfulness with your husband?” Now there’s a question to chew on.

Postscript:
2023: British Columbia becomes the first province in Canada to make contraceptives free. You can access the list here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-coverage/pharmacare-for-bc-residents/what-we-cover/prescription-contraceptives. This includes the morning-after pill (Emergency Oral Contraceptive); all  can be had without a dispensing fee.