Gary’s Queen Milli of Galt was a hit with our audience in 2007. And like this earlier work, Pearl Gidley uses local lore as its inspiration.
It is the late 1960’s and Pearl lives a quiet life with her sister, taking in boarders, but avoiding contact with the outside world. A piano sits in their parlor, untouched for decades, yet George the piano tuner tends to it, at Pearl’s request year after year. This year, however, George introduces a new tenant to the Gidley house. Andrew is a mysterious young man from the US, strangely evasive about his past. As suspicions mount that he may be a draft dodger, it comes to light that he has, in fact, served in Viet Nam. He is even a decorated soldier. The spinsters’ curiosity about his past is matched only by his curiosity about the untouched piano and the sheet music that Pearl keeps on display. Gradually, they draw each other’s stories out, note by note. Like many of Blyth’s highly successful plays, this one brings unexpected laughs along with the difficult revelations.
