4th Line Theatre 2023/The Tilco Strike by D’Arcy Jenish, directed by Cynthia Ashperger, Winslow Farm Barnyard, Millbrook ON, June 27 to July 22. Tickets here.
4th Line Theatre is like no other performing arts organization. Who else can mount epic productions with a cast of 30? Well, maybe Stratford and Shaw… but 4th Line Theatre is on a farm an hour and a half northeast of Toronto.
The company puts armies marching on stage by hiring a few equity actors and surrounding them with theatre students and recent grads, plus significant representation from the local community theatre habitués.
More to the point, 4th Line plays are anchored in the Peterborough-Kawartha area, so the company is highlighting local history while providing entertainment with original Canadian plays.
Take, for example, this year’s fare. The July play is a world premiere about the Tilco Plastics strike in Peterborough in 1965-66 (cast of 30), while August presents a remount of the ever-popular The Cavan Blazers (cast of 50), which is a chronicle of the conflict between Protestant and Catholic settlers from Ireland in Cavan Township in the 1800s.
The Tilco Strike is by noted journalist and non-fiction writer D’Arcy Jenish, who stumbled on the story when researching Trent University’s first 50 years. It was distinguished historian, Prof. Joan Sangster, who referred Jenish to a paper she had written on Tilco.
The Tilco Strike is, in a way, a shocking story, because the law in the 1960s was tilted in favour of the employer who could, for example, file injunctions to limit picketing while hiring scabs.
Peterborough was a union town at the time, with 54 unionized companies big and small, so there was community support for the Tilco strikers and their union, the Textile Workers of America. The big problem was the wilful behaviour of the employers and their use of the law.
Jenish has isolated five workers to represent the 35 women who worked at Tilco Plastics, which made cheap items like combs and barrettes. They give the human side to the crisis. They are those who suffer from poor wages and bad working conditions,
Lil Downer (equity actor Katherine Cappellacci) is the strike leader. She has a daughter and a wannabe musician husband who is a bit of a wastrel. She gives a passionate performance while practically carrying the show on her soldiers.
Molly Curtis (Sierra Gibb-Khan) regrets not going to secretarial school. Belle Merritt (Laurin Isiekwena) is a party girl. Flossie Whitten (Sarah McNeilly) has five children, while Rita Brioux (Ellyse Wolter) is 28 and still lives with her mother.
Now admittedly, some of the young women are a little young for the roles, but they all give committed and spirited performances.
Two of the Tilco bosses are equity actors. M. John Kennedy as Harold “Dutch” Pammett is the most hateful, refusing to give an inch to the strikers, while Jason Gray is Donald Harwood, the firm’s numbers man, who grows more choleric with his partner’s increasing obstinacy. They both give a strong account of themselves.
The third partner, Donald Tripp, the chief salesman, is hilariously performed by long time 4th Liner Mark Hiscox. He’s a bit on the dim side and has some hilarious lines. He really is comic relief as Tripp, but he also doubles as three other characters.
Some other actors should be mentioned.
Theatre grads, Rebecca Burrell gets lots of laughs as the Tilco secretary Gladys with her very special walk, while Nathan Simpson performs Vic Skurjat, the sympathetic union organizer from Toronto. Hilary Wear is terrific as Gertie Rajsky, the Polish shop steward and Tilco loyalist.
And what would a 4th Line play be without long time community theatre stalwart Matt Gilbert, who gives another great performance in four different roles?
A director has to manipulate a large cast around the two barns and the extended barnyard which make up the 4th Line stage, and Cynthia Ashperger knows that space well as both an actor and director. Her production of The Tilco Strike is fast-paced and filled with action, including a few exciting cat fights between workers and scabs, staged by Edward Belanger.
Once again, musical director Justin Hiscox has put together an interesting score of mostly labour and protest songs, while Korin Cormier and Esther Vincent have worked their magic with costumes and set/props respectively.
The Peterborough Tilco Strike was important in the annals of Ontario labour history, and Jenish has given us a play, while a bit on the rambling side, that is both entertaining and substantive. The script also cunningly includes real life people to great amusement.
You’ll have to see The Tilco Strike at 4th Line Theatre to find out what happens, as I don’t want to give anything away.
And here’s a final thought from the program notes: the not-withstanding clause of today, ordering workers back to the job, is suspiciously like the injunctions of the 1960s.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her own website, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance writer for The Globe and Mail, associate editor of Opera Canada magazine, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life magazine. She has been a guest lecturer for various cultural groups and universities, particularly on the role of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Before assuming a full-time journalism career, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama department of the Claude Watson School for the Arts.
