It’s 1914, and Mary (Maev Beaty) has just arrived from England to start a new life in western Canada. One rainy night, she meets Charlie (Wade Bogert-O’Brien), a handsome farm boy who loves riding horses and who is terribly afraid of thunderstorms. First love strikes hard, but history has other plans for the pair, as Charlie ships off to fight in the First World War and Mary is left waiting for his letters.
Told in retrospect through a series of dreams, Steven Massicotte’s “Mary’s Wedding” is a touching story of innocence, awakening, war and grief. As Mary sleeps, she follows Charlie from sweeping prairie landscapes to muddy trenches, tracing their romance through letters from the front lines and flashbacks to the hopeful days when they first met. In this Thousand Islands Playhouse production directed by Brett Christopher, the lovers meet in a large wooden barn (set design by Joe Pagnan) framed with candles in mason jars and hanging garlands of white and pink flowers.
The set’s rotating centrepiece allows the action to shift quickly between home and the battlefield, while Jeff Pybus’ lighting design brings thunderstorms and shellfire to awe-striking life, drawing out poignant parallels in the script and enhancing the uncanny elements of the dreamlike storytelling. Beaty brings out the pensive, lyrical qualities of Mary’s monologues while capturing perfectly youthful awkwardness in her conversations with Charlie. As the dream shifts, she dons a trench cap and.