Wild Mouth

A passionate encounter between a grieving mother and a troubled soldier just back from France illuminates Wild Mouth, a new play by Maureen Hunter. Anna is a British-born immigrant who returns to her brother’s prairie farm in 1917 to help with the harvest and to try to heal. There she meets Bohdan, a young man of Ukrainian descent who changed his name to Smith in order to get to the front. Anna’s desperation to understand her son’s death propels both of them to the edge of an abyss. This seven-character play explores the enduring connections between love and war, beauty and horror, creation and destruction.

AUTHOR

Maureen Hunter

Maureen Hunter is one of Canada’s most accomplished playwrights. Her work has been produced from coast to coast in Canada, in theatres large and small, in the U.S. and the U.K., and by CBC and BBC Radio. She has been short-listed for two Governor General’s Awards and two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Outstanding New Play). Her play Sarah Ballenden premiered at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in April 2017 under the direction of Steven Schipper. RMTC also premiered Vinci, Atlantis, Transit of Venus and Beautiful Lake Winnipeg. Transit of Venus became the first Canadian play to be produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company. An opera version, for which she wrote the libretto, premiered at Manitoba Opera in 2007. Other plays include Wild Mouth, premiered by Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 2008, and Footprints on the Moon, premiered by Agassiz Theatre, Winnipeg, in 1988. Footprints received its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre in London in May 2017.