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Jennie's Story/Under the Skin
by Betty Lambert
Winner of the 1983 Chalmers Canadian
Play Award, Jennie’s Story is set in the late 1930s on the
Canadian prairies. It concerns the Sexual Sterilization Act that was
enacted in 1928, allowing a sterilization procedure to be performed
without consent on individuals that were deemed to be unfit or mentally
challenged. Jennie McGrane takes the title role, and her discovery of
what the priest Father Fabrizeau has done to her is the central drama
of the play. Believing she had an appendectomy when she was a teenager,
the truth is revealed when she’s unable to conceive.
Under the Skin is based on a
real kidnapping that occurred in Port Moody, British Columbia. There
are only three characters: Maggie, Renee and John. Maggie’s daughter
Emma has disappeared, though we never see the girl in the play. The
focus is on Renee’s marriage to the sadistic John, and the terrible
secret he is keeping from her. For John is the one that has kidnapped
the twelve-year-old and confined her to an air-raid shelter beneath
his workshop, where he sexually molests her. As the play progresses,
Renee realizes what has happened, and it is her subtle reaction to this
shocking revelation that underlies the play’s theme.
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