32 July 4 • 2019
jn

theater
arts&life

C

anadian writer Hannah 
Moscovitch transplants her 
roots — with modifications — 
for theater audiences.
This season at the Shaw Festival in 
Ontario, her Eastern European heri-
tage, passed down through her father, 
comes across in The Russian Play. A 
lunchtime one-act that tells the story 
of a 1920s flower girl falling 
in love with a gravedigger, 
the production has updated 
sequences.
Moscovitch, while explor-
ing the thrills and dangers 
of love, has invented a way 
to tell timely political jokes 
as the production continues 
through Oct. 12.
“The play has tropes and 
stereotypes, and those have 
changed dramatically in the 
last 10 or 15 years,
” says the 
playwright, who also devotes 
her creativity to television 
scripts and opera librettos. 
“There’
s a whole new 
relationship that America 
has with Russia, so I updat-
ed some of the references. 
Sonya, the flower girl, exists 
in the [past] but talks to the 
audience as though she’
s in 
the modern era.
“If I were to talk about 
the Jewish sensibility of the 
piece, I would say that it’
s 
funny. I like to make jokes 
about dark topics. Tragedy and come-
dy have a mix in life.
”
A special bonus in the playwright’
s 
first experience with the Shaw Festival 
is working with director Diana 
Donnelly, who, like Moscovitch, has 
Romanian Jewish ancestry. The two 
are close friends.
“I met Diana when we were 
attending the National Theatre 
School of Canada,” says the play-
wright, entering her 40s. “We grew 
up as artists together, and she spent 
most of her career as a performer at 
Shaw. She performed in one of my 
first plays, East of Berlin [about the 
life of a Nazi war criminal’
s son].”
Although starting college with 
the idea of becoming an actress, 
Moscovitch soon found a better fit 
with writing. She majored in English 
at the University of Toronto before 
graduating from the National Theatre 
School.
“I’
ve recently done projects very 

explicitly about Judaism,
” says 
Moscovitch, who had a bat mitzvah, 
went on a March of the Living trip and 
spent time on a kibbutz when she was 
18. “I did Old Stock: A Refugee Love 
Story about my grandparents coming 
to Canada as refugees from Romania 
in 1908.
”
A very new initiative is The Secret 
Life of a Mother.
“It’
s a confessional piece 
about pregnancy, miscar-
riage, labor and parenting,” 
she says. “It’
s my story, the 
most experimental piece 
I’
ve done, and I talk about 
being Jewish quite a bit. 
One of the more moving 
parts of doing all this was 
that my dear friend Maev 
Beaty plays me. 
“Maev is mostly at 
Stratford, but she took a 
break to play me. I talk about 
her in the show in the third 
person, and it forces her 
to reveal some of her own 
secrets. There’
s a part where 
Elijah, my son, has just been 
born, and I sing the ‘
Shema’
 
to him.
“The piece went out right 
after the synagogue shoot-
ings, and that scene was 
very moving. It was an odd 
concurrence of events, and I 
could hear people crying.
”
Moscovitch, who lives 
in Halifax, is married to Christian 
Barry, a theater artistic director. Both 
are hockey fans and have traveled to 
Detroit for games. They hope to return 
when their 4-year-old son is a little 
older.
“Halifax has about 1,000 Jews, and I 
go to a Shabbos event every month or 
two with young Jewish families,
” she 
says. “There’
s nothing like having a son 
named Elijah to celebrate Passover.
”
As Moscovitch works on upcom-
ing projects, including TV shows in 
development since writing episodes 
of the spy series X Company, she can 
take inspiration from awards — the 
Windham-Campbell Prize presented 
by Yale, Gascon-Thomas Prize for 
Revitalizing Theatre and Toronto 
Theatre Critics Award for Best 
Canadian Play.
“I’
m used to my projects being at 
new works theaters,
” she says, “so it’
s 
quite beautiful having my work put on 
beside George Bernard Shaw’
s.
” ■

Shaw 
Festival 
playwright 
Hannah 
Moscovitch 
uses a mix 
of humor 
and tragedy.

The 
Russian 
Play

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Shaw Festival Lineup
These plays have been scheduled for this 
year’
s Shaw Festival, which runs through 
Dec. 22 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
• The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, 
adapted for the stage by Anne Chatterton. 
A talking horse rescues a boy.
• Brigadoon, book and lyrics by Alan 
J. Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe. Two 
hunting buddies get lost in a land that aris-
es once every 100 years.
• The Ladykillers by Graham Lineham. 
A senior encounters a group of disguised 
criminals.
• Man and Superman and Don Juan in 
Hell by George Bernard Shaw. Romance 

ensues with a dream sequence often per-
formed separately.
• The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee 
Williams. A memory play about a mother 
and her grown son and daughter.
• Sex by Mae West. A prostitute looks for 
a better life.
• Victory by Howard Barker. A woman 
risks her dignity.
• Rope by Patrick Hamilton. College stu-
dents commit murder.
• Getting Married by George Bernard 
Shaw. A wedding is called off.
• Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond 
Rosland. A self-conscious swordsman falls 
in love.

Hannah Moscovitch

ALEJANDRO SANTIAGO

 
Mike Nadajewski as Kostya and Gabriella Sundar Singh 

as Sonya in The Russian Play

DAVID COOPER

details
The Russian Play 
runs through Oct. 
12 during the 
Shaw Festival at 
Niagara-on-the-
Lake, Ontario. 
See sidebar for 
complete play 
listing. For infor-
mation, call (800) 
511-7429 or go 
to shawfest.com.

