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St. Jacobs Country Playhouse

Mary's Wedding

A Love Story

October 26 to November 12, 2023

By Stephen Massicotte

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A play with a heart as big as the skies that serve as its stage, Mary’s Wedding is an epic, unforgettable story of love, hope, and survival.

On the night before her wedding, Mary dreams of a thunderstorm, during which she unexpectedly meets Charlie sheltering in a barn beside his horse. With innocence and humour, the two discover a charming first love. But the year is 1914, and the world is collapsing into a brutal war. Together, they attempt to hide their love, galloping through the fields for a place and time where the tumultuous uncertainties of battle can’t find them. 

A Canadian work of rare sensitivity and beauty, Mary’s Wedding weaves time, dreams, and memory together to remind us that the heart is marvelously resilient.  Don’t miss this moving memorial to both the Great War and great love.

Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes without intermission.

Audience Recommendation: This production contains mature themes. Recommended for ages 13 and up. There is no official rating system for live theatre. We encourage you to use your judgment based on your child's age and maturity level.

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Reviews

Great show and a excellent performance from both Actors
Andreas S, Kitchener
This theatre performance you have to be there to truly appreciate the true meaning of a great love story during the war as many relived their own experiences in their family. The performance was outstanding and you felt the pain and the love of the story. Many shed a tear or two during the story and it holds your attention from beginning to end. Truly played by outstanding performers. I told so many about the the show but I said repeatedly you need to see the show to truly experience the all time love story.
Dianna W, Woodstock
Superb performance.
Kathy H, Waterloo
Mary's Wedding is a must see performance.
A well done play with only two characters, wow! They sure did a great job telling the story and acting out their parts. A must see!
We loved this production of Mary's Wedding. Kudos to the two fabulous actors.
Marlene M, Freelton
Loved it! Special meaning so close to Remembrance Day. My emotion were all over the place, I laughed, cried and fell in love. Such a simple set yet I felt like I was in the trenches with the soldiers.
Kathy B, Woodstock
Two amazing actors. Very emotional.
Cindy I, Hanover
Best seats in the house for an excellent, yet tearful story about love and loss during WW1. A cast of only 2 who convincingly played their parts to perfection. I would highly recommend the play.
Glenys J, Chesley
Attended a matine performance October 26. Pure poetry, Excellent cast. True theatre magic!
Guy M, St Thomas
The story was told in an unusual way which made it captivating. Wonderful actors.
Dianne G, Waterloo
Amazing play!The Actors were wonderful. Everyone should see it.
Carolyn O., Toronto
I attended the opening of Mary's Wedding and would give it 10 stars, at least!! I was spellbound from the moment I laid my eyes on the gorgeous set. Ellen and Dante were perfectly cast and they tugged at my heartstrings with their brilliant acting and chemistry! Thank you to all involved with this heartwarming and moving play. It is another Must-See Drayton play!
Stephanie T, Guelph
This is what theatre is about. A brilliantly written piece reflecting true to heart relationships and what is needed to be done to work through obstacles to reach the one you love. Chicago Stage Standard
A play that understands loving and grieving and shakes you with the horrible immediacy of war. Orlando Sentinel
Stephen Massicotte is the poet, working with homey materials to create a 95-minute love story. . . . It turns the audience into poets, too, making us imaginative participants in this story of doomed love. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ending really is quite extraordinary in its emotional impact. CBC Radio Canada
Lightning strikes fast and hard before soldier boy Charlie and local girl Mary have even met in Stephen Massicotte’s gorgeous little First World War–set two-hander. . . . Massicotte mines a similar vein of magic and loss in a cruel world to create this heartfelt elegy to love and war. Herald Scotland
[T]he tale is genuinely affecting. TimeOut, Chicago
Massicotte blends a war story that could well be a two-act action play, and the story of two lovers intriguing enough to be a two-act conventional romance, into a one-act tightly constructed play, but never seems to be slighting either story. Potomac Stages, Washington, DC
The truth is in the details, and Massicotte’s lovely language is well-grounded, but aspires to its own sort of poetry. It doesn’t overshoot the mark... The narration is vivid, but the relationship between the young lovers, Mary and Charlie, is rendered in charming, everyday exchanges. Milwaukee Magazine
Massicotte writes with an earnestness that is rare in this cynical day and age. San Jose Mercury News
Have you ever had a dream so real you wish it could be true? Mary’s Wedding is like that dream; sublime and thoughtful, it lingers in your mind long after you’ve woken up and gone home. Avenue Calgary
Massicotte’s play is simple, too—deceptively so, in that its uncomplicated story contains a world of experience. Washington City Paper
[T]he way the playwright works with the dream structure he’s set up is skilled and subtle. It just works so well. Regina Reviews
Massicotte doesn’t push his anti-war message. He doesn’t have to. The charm of his romance juxtaposed against prosaic descriptions from the trenches . . . do it for him. San Francisco Chronicle
Covering first love thwarted by war, how loving someone strongly is as frightening as it is exhilarating, and companionship in war, the play’s dream setting now in this revival achieves full effect. Edinburgh Guide
Both poignant and suspenseful, the play is relevant to this day. CurtainUp, Los Angeles
[A] ninety-minute experience through heartbreaking surreality. Indianapolis Examiner
Mary’s Wedding has audiences breathing in at the first words and only consciously exhaling after the last scene ends. Victoria Rainbow News
With a refreshing lack of cynicism, this deeply romantic dream-play goes straight to the heart with timely themes of love and loss during wartime. The Seattle Times
The opening-night audience sat entranced and the final moments are some of the most heart wrenching I have experienced in a theatre in a long time. Edmonton Sun
Spare, artful, ethereal, powerful, and unexpectedly poetic . . . the tale is written with such freshness, invention, and emotional depth that it’s anything but predictable. Journal Sentinal, Milwaukee, WI
Mary’s Wedding . . . proves Massicotte is a gifted storyteller with an ear for detail and imagery. . . . It was Massicotte’s descriptive writing that allowed the audience to really lose themselves in the moment. There was nary a dry eye in the house by the time the actors took their final bows. Calgary Herald
Put[s] you in mind of the grand passion of Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, the vastness of their love mirroring the wild tangle of nature. The Washington Times
There are many thrills that can be experienced in the theater. But the sensation of flying through a landscape on the back of a galloping horse is not usually among them. So there’s a certain bravado . . . in writing a play about a cavalry charge. Or about lovers whose feelings ripen on horseback. In Mary’s Wedding . . . Stephen Massicotte gets us up in the saddle for both. The New York Times
[T]aps into some strikingly intense feelings about love, loss, and recovery. Chicago Tribune
You can tell from the audience’s rapt silence that this is a special show, not to be missed. Now Magazine
[L]ove and war may be the oldest stories we have. But they also never grow old, especially not when they are told with as much delicacy and restraint as Massicotte’s play displays . . . The Boston Globe
It is a lovely story. At times funny, at times romantic, sometimes dramatic, a little sad, but always with that easy charming undertow that pulls the audience along with it. Applause! Meter
If this production had been a videotape I would have rewound it and watched the whole thing all over again the minute it ended. New York Theatre Review
This is what theatre is about. A brilliantly written piece reflecting true to heart relationships and what is needed to be done to work through obstacles to reach the one you love. Chicago Stage Standard

Meet The Artists

Ellen Denny headshot

Ellen Denny

Mary/Flowers

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Dante Jemmott headshot

Dante Jemmott

Charlie

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