ann marie macdonald fall on your knees summary

James’s physical violence, which is merely one element of his more sympathetic portrait in the book, is ratcheted up in the stage version. The two evoke the toxic patriarchal systems in place in both the Piper household and the one Materia grew up in under her strict Lebanese father, Mr. What adapters Alisa Palmer (who also directs) and Hannah Moscovitch (credited with the script) have successfully done, however, is emphasize certain elements that give the show some thematic through lines and consistency. A subplot about a Black couple in New Waterford, Leo (Tony Ofori) and Adelaide Taylor (Janelle Cooper), feels especially underdeveloped here. Onstage, however, we merely get plot points that feel checked off rather than organic, and characters who, because they have never been properly established, largely remain ciphers going through motions. What kept readers turning pages was MacDonald’s dazzling, poetic prose and the artful way she hinted at the family’s closetful of secrets. The mystery of what happens to Kathleen in New York, and why James brings her back, pregnant, to Cape Breton, hangs over the book and play and provides the narrative engine for the work’s second part, subtitled “The Diary.” Over the course of their marriage, James grows increasingly distant from his wife, although he feels an unnatural attraction to his daughters, especially Kathleen, who, after he returns home battle-scarred from World War I, he sends down to New York City to study singing. Wright) and the rebellious firebrand Frances (Deborah Hay). Materia, who desperately wants a son to please her estranged father, gives birth instead to three daughters in the remote New Waterford: the vivacious and musically gifted Kathleen (Samantha Hill), the devout and responsible Mercedes (Jenny L. Part One, subtitled “Family Tree,” begins with the story of self-made Cape Bretoner James Piper (Tim Campbell), a burly, imposing piano tuner who, at age 19, falls in love with the 12-year-old Materia (Cara Rebecca), who comes from a strict Lebanese-Canadian family and is promptly disowned by her family.

Those fans will likely be content watching the story unravel, scene by laborious scene, even if people unfamiliar with the source material might be scratching their heads and shifting in their seats.

Ann marie macdonald fall on your knees summary