Family, relationships have key roles in latest LFT production
By Reformer Staff | Simcoe Reformer
Monday, July 24, 2023
Two jam-making sisters on Manitoulin Island, keen on setting up one of their daughters with the local handsome veterinarian, have secrets that are about to come to light.
Welcome to Lighthouse Festival’s production of Kristen Da Silva’s Where You Are, on stage until Aug. 5 in Port Dover and to Aug. 20 in Port Colborne.
“Over the course of my life, I have found my personal circle has gotten smaller, even as my number of acquaintances has grown, an experience I believe is fairly universal,” said playwright Da Silva.
“In the part of life when the chips start to fall – children, marriages, jobs gained and lost, professional triumphs and professional disappointments, illness, health, faces in and faces out – we discover who our people really are. This is a play about people like that.”
At its core, said director Jane Spence, Where You Are is about relationships, both existing and potential.
“It shares a powerful message about the difficulties that arise when secrets are kept, even with the best intentions. It explores what it means to love unconditionally, examining the struggles we sometimes face to give our loved ones the room to live life on their own terms, especially when their choices may differ from the ones we would make for them.”
In the play, sisters Glenda and Suzanne live a quiet retirement selling homemade jam. This summer their usual concerns – trying to orchestrate sightings of their handsome neighbour and preparing for the visit of Suzanne’s grown daughter, Beth – are complicated by a secret the sisters can no longer contain.
When Beth arrives with some secrets of her own, the three women face things that will change their lives forever.
The cast includes Susan Henley as Glenda, Melanie Janzen as Suzanne, Gaelan Beatty as Patrick and Caroline Toal as Beth.
Visit lighthousetheatre.com for tickets and more information.