4th Line Theatre/Jim Watts: Girl Reporter, written by Beverley Cooper, directed by Kim Blackwell, Winslow Farm, Millbrook ON, closes Aug. 24. Tickets here.
Playwright Beverley Cooper is having a banner summer with two world premieres. The Blyth Festival is mounting The Trials of Maggie Pollack, while 4th Line Theatre is debuting Jim Watts: Girl Reporter. Both have real historical figures as their centre piece.
While the Blyth production features five professional actors, 4th Line has armies marching with a cast of 28. That’s because the company is a mix of professional, community theatre, and drama school actors along with enthusiastic volunteers of all ages. A 4th Line play is always epic, and Jim Watts is no exception.
Perhaps the most captivating feature of Jim Watts is that she is a flawed character which adds real depth to the play, and kudos to Cooper for making her thus.
Myrtle Eugenia Watts (Katie Ryerson) came from a wealthy Toronto family, but from a very young age became a crusader for social justice, flying in the face of her family’s conservative values. Her rallying cry was that she wanted to make a difference in the world. The play traces Watts’ journey on that quest.
Her first inspiration is hearing a fiery speech by the notorious communist Emma Goldman (Hilary Wear) which ignites her fight for social justice. Jim then drops out of university to join a radical agitprop theatre company in Toronto, then it’s off to Spain to join the cause of the democratically elected Popular Front (Republicans) in the civil war (1936-1939) against Franco’s fascists.
Jim (her nickname) manages to hustle a job as a reporter dispatching news from the war zone for the left wing Toronto Daily Clarion, but wanting to make even more of a difference, she eventually becomes an ambulance driver on the front line. Meanwhile, she keeps trying to join the men only Canadian brigade of volunteers — the famous Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. She finally gets her wish, and is one of only three women officially allowed into the ranks of the Mac-Paps.
This outline is just the bare bones of Cooper’s sweeping drama. Music director Justin Hiscox has managed to find many protest songs to incorporate into the mix, along with composing evocative original music to underscore the production. Korin Cormier’s costumes detail the period wonderfully well, while set designer Michelle Chesser has evoked Spain through clever posters.
Many historical figures make an appearance, including American journalist Martha Gelhorn (Lindsay Wilson), whose hard-hitting dispatches from the war are considered literary gold, which are in stark contrast to Jim’s idealized and romanticized reports.
Twice, people try to get Jim to see the big picture.
One is Norman Bethune (Matt Gilbert), when she visits the heroic Canadian doctor’s portable blood transfusion clinic. He gives Jim a withering report card on her saccharine writing. The other is Jim Higgins (Thomas Fournier), a local Peterborough man who wrote a book about his experiences in Spain. He tries to tell Jim Watts how the various in-fighting factions on the Republican side are tearing their cause apart, leaving themselves open to Franco’s army.
This is what is so wonderfully intriguing about Cooper’s portrayal of Jim. This young woman just wants to make a difference in the world. Her passion is real. She is brave and intrepid, but she is putting her ideals on the line at the expense of the truth.
There are some outstanding performances.
One amusing scene has an elevated conversation between Gelhorn, Dorothy Parker (Wear) and Lillian Helman (Michelle Chesser). Jim is there, but is clearly not in their league. 4th Line stalwart Gilbert as Bethune is his usual excellent self, while Fournier shines in various roles.
Anita La Selva gives a powerful performance as both Jim’s mother and the Spanish Republican heroine, La Passionaria. She also choreographed and leads a haunting flamenco dance that speaks to death and destruction. And of course, kudos to Ryerson as Jim who literally carries the show and her shoulders.
Once again, imaginative director Kim Blackwell moves her army of actors all around the barnyard and adjoining fields bringing the war to vivid life. She makes order of seeming chaos.
If you are a committed leftie, this play has your name on it, even though your politics might not be as far left as Jim’s are. On the other hand, 4th Line is in an area represented both provincially and federally by Conservatives, and I wonder how accepting some of the audience are to Jim’s beliefs in free love and bisexuality, along with her radical views.
In short, Cooper’s Jim Watts: Girl Reporter is heady, provocative stuff, and a landmark play for 4th Line, considering its rabble-rousing political content.
One last thing. Cooper’s ending, which I will not give away, is superb. Suffice it to say, Jim Watts remained committed to making a difference in the world until the end.
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