A tale of romance and war
By Ashley Shah
Scripps Ranch Theatre’s upcoming production of “Mary’s Wedding” is a dream-play featuring themes of romance and depictions of war.
“A dream-play is a very non-linear way of storytelling. The story is told in a lot of flashbacks and ‘what-ifs.’ There is fantastical mixed with the everyday. It is a watercolor painting of an event,” director Kate Reynolds said.
The production takes place on the eve of World War I in Canada, 1914.
“We follow a young couple, Charlie and Mary, who meet in a barn during a thunderstorm right before Charlie is deployed,” Reynolds said.
The play is a two-person show.
Mary, played by Liliana Talwatte, is a young British woman. Her family has just immigrated from England to Canada.
“We start the show with Mary saying that we are on the eve of her wedding, and that she is having this recurring dream of how she and Charlie met back in 1914,” Reynolds said. “She is the glue that holds the production together. She is the one who receives his letters. She has dreams of seeing him on the front. We are in her brain and her dreams.”
Charlie, played by Dennis O’Connor, is a Canadian farm-boy who works with horses on his father’s farm.
“When the war breaks out, Charlie feels that it is his patriotic duty to sign up and fight on behalf of England. He signs up with the cavalry, but as we know, WWI was a brutal war, and he ends up in the trenches. We get a first-hand account of fighting in the trenches,” Reynolds said.
The play follows the perspectives of both characters through the production.
“It’s nice to be able to produce something that is a classic love story similar to old Hollywood, mixed with this heart-wrenching, tension filled war story,” Reynolds said. “As a director, I love being able to balance the elements. There is a lot of juxtaposition. We are balancing war and romance, fantasy and reality, the dream and waking life. I like holding everything in tension together.”
The production will run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from April 4 to the last show on April 27. It will be held on the campus of Alliant International University, 9783 Avenue of Nations.
“What I’m mainly hoping for is that the audience is transported for 90 minutes,” Reynolds said. “I hope that they can sink into all of the elements that this production has to offer. I hope that it moves them. I hope that it touches them. I hope that they get caught up in it, the tension and anticipation of what might happen next.”
Tickets can be purchased at scrippsranchtheatre.org/tickets or by contacting Patron Services at
(858) 395-0573.