The Drowning Girls

Shatterbox Theatre’s new production at Macaulay Church

In the years just before the start of the First World War, three women share two things in common. Firstly, they each married the same man; and secondly, they died shortly after doing so, murdered by drowning in a bathtub. The three women are Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty. Each was romanced by and wedded to George Joseph Smith, who convinced them to turn over all their worldly possessions to him, and were shortly thereafter killed. The play The Drowning Girls looks at this story from the hereafter—the dead women recount their tales to each other on a stage where the only furniture is three claw-foot bathtubs. Instead of simply being murder victims, their story is told as an inevitable consequence of the society they live in and the strictures and expectations placed upon them. In the play, the three women adopt various characters in each others’ lives to flesh out the story, including that of the murderous husband. It is a grim and disturbing progression to their eventual fate, but leavened with flashes of dark humour that reveals their own knowledge of their vulnerability.

This play is Julie Lane’s first as sole director, and she felt it was more manageable with just three actors than a larger production. “I loved the play itself—the wittiness, the fact that it is based on a true story, and the strength that is brought forth for each of these women that, until relatively recently, they were thought of as victims, yet they have their own stories,” she said. Lane added that the play is set in a way that give glimpses into the individual lives of each of the women. “We see the societal norms and expectations that really conditioned women of that era to be in a position to end up in a sordid situation. A very big part of it was the reliance of women on having a husband; you couldn’t do anything independently. They refer to being married as freedom and having a friend and being able to have a choice.”

Shatterbox Theatre called for auditions in August, and Lane said that this was one of the hardest casting decisions she has ever had to make. “Every person that came out to our auditions did a fantastic job. So it became a choice of purely who would bring the most justice to the character. There were elements that each of the final three brought that set them to that next level up, but overall it was an incredibly hard decision to make,” she said. The three actors chosen were Robin Snip, Kelli-Anne Maycock and Julianna Tyers. The play will be staged at Macaulay Church, which Lane says is a fitting place given the historical era of actual events. Special precautions will be taken to allow the use of water in the bathtubs. “There are a lot of complications when water is used on stage,” said Lane.

Robin Snip said she read the play before going to the audition. “I really liked the play, and the way it’s staged is super-different from anything I’ve ever done before,” she said. She added that the societal restrictions are portrayed by each of the actors being corseted.

“It’s a physical restriction that sort of helps bring everything else. It makes our movement constricted; it affects the way we can breathe and talk, how loud we can be.” The darkness of the subject is offset a little bit by the humour the women find in their situations.

“I think it’s always easier to tell hard stories when there’s lightness, because there has to be both sides otherwise none of us will get out of bed. Yes, it’s dark and awful and horrible, but telling the stories of what happened to these women and bringing it in a lighter way makes it more accessible, and I think people will take more away,” she said. Director Julie Lane credits the actors with being able to switch seamlessly from dark to light and back again.

“The script itself does a wonderful job of balancing some comedic moments along with the seriousness of the story, but the actors we have bring that up a notch, so you really get quite a ‘flipping’ feeling sometimes when they are able to switch so quickly between having a super-serious down and heartbreaking moment to completely bubbly and over the top, satirizing certain points of societal expectations.”

The play opens on Thursday and runs until Sunday, October 23. There are performances each day at 8 p.m., and 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday. “It’s a show you need to come to experience. If you are a fan of murder mysteries, if you are a fan of feminism, or if you are just a fan of theatre, it really hits so many different genres and interests that there is something for everyone,” said Lane. Tickets may be purchased from Eventbrite. For more information, please visit shatterboxtheatre.com