About the Play:

Wild Mouth is a full-length drama by Maureen Hunter. A passionate encounter between a grieving mother who flees to the Prairies to grieve the loss of her son and a troubled soldier just back from France. Wild Mouth recounts war's personal toll and the emotional devastation felt by families, particularly mothers.

Wild Mouth is set on the Prairies during World War I and follows Anna, who becomes obsessed with the gritty details of the life of a soldier and pursues the wounded Bodhan, looking for answers. 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. Wild Mouth explores the connections between love and war, beauty and horror, creation and destruction.

Wild Mouth premiered in 2008 at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario. While the play is rarely performed professionally, it is an ideal choice for a Remembrance Day performance or reading to commemorate those who fought for our country in the Great War.

Cast: 3 female, 4 male

What people say:

"Hunter has created an impressive piece of work here... Her Wild Mouth is full of often unruly humanity and, marked by a deep and genuine affection and empathy not only for her characters, but for the land they both love and fear, but there's nothing flat about Hunter's exquisitely written play... In a country unscarred by major battles, Hunter underlines the fact that we are, nonetheless, deeply scarred by war." — Toronto Sun

"It takes place on the Canadian prairies, but there's nothing flat about Hunter's exquisitely written play." — NOW Magazine

About the Playwright:

Maureen Hunter is one of Canada's most accomplished playwrights. Her work has been produced extensively on Canada's major stages, as well as in Britain and the U.S. and has been nominated for two Governor General's Awards, two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Outstanding New Play) and the Elinor and Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. Her work has been produced extensively on Canada's major stages, in the United States, and Britain, and by CBC and BBC Radio. Her play Transit of Venus became the first Canadian play ever staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company of Britain. A native of Saskatchewan, Maureen Hunter now lives in Winnipeg.