About the Play:

Memories of You is a full-length drama by Wendy Lill. Based on the romantic and literary entanglements of the late great Canadian novelist Elizabeth Smart, Memories of You explores one woman's passions as she struggles to be a lover, a mother and a writer.

Memories of You is about writer Elizabeth Smart's romantic obsession with English poet George Barker. The life of the Canadian novelist Elizabeth Smart pivoted on a turbulent affair that produced four children and her one book By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Yet the dramatic strength of Wendy Lill's play resides in her clear-eyed portrayal of Elizabeth Smart's life not as a sacrifice to one great literary work, but of the book as a mere record of one great life lived. When her resentful, drug-dependent daughter Rose comes to visit, mother and daughter confront each other with their own distinctly different visions of the past. Rose remembers that her father used her mother; Elizabeth remembers that she chose the father of her children, and that she did not regret that choice. It validates a woman's right to chose the shape of her own life, in the full knowledge and understanding of the lasting consequences of her desire, her imagination and her actions. In its rejection of sentiment and any search for approval outside the self, it is an intense affirmation of the humanist spirit. It defines heroism as the ability to always embrace the world as it is, and never to make do with the way it 'should be.'

Memories of You premiered in 1988 by Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg. Since then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across Canada.

Cast: 4 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Beautifully written…its pleasure, its sensuality and its pain. A courageous and profoundly moving play…." — CBC

"...a startling emotional and visual experience, thrusts the viewer into a red hot and hyper-real world of love...." — Halifax Chronical-Herald

"…resonates with energy and passion." — Winnipeg Sun

About the Playwright:

Wendy Lill is a Canadian playwright and former parliamentarian who worked in various parts of Canada, finally settling in Nova Scotia. Her experiences in journalism and broadcasting influenced and encouraged her to "fictionalize real incidents and events." She has been described as a writer of "contemporary social issues with a clear-cut women's perspective." Her plays are produced in professional and community theatres and universities across Canada and internationally.