The Flood: and other misadventures of the female prisoners of the St. Lawrence Market

By Leah Simone Bowen

“I bore him fourteen children and he had me down here faster than lightning.”

In 1887, women were property and could be imprisoned for any reason. Jail was considered a place for the criminal, the disabled, the mentally ill, and the marginalized.

In the basement prison below Toronto’s largest market, two women named Mary—one a shunned, pregnant Irish immigrant, the other a vilified Mississauga woman—become an unlikely pair as they form a friendship within their cold, shared cell. Their bond threatens fellow inmate Sophia—who calls herself the first Black woman in Canada and the leader of the prisoners—and she plots to use the women to gain better treatment for herself. But as melting ice water pours into the prison from Lake Ontario, the forgotten women of Toronto must come together to survive.

Inspired by true accounts and the history of Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market, The Flood gives voice to the little-known stories of early female prisoners in Canada.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781770919396

Leah Simone Bowen

Leah Simone Bowen is a Toronto-based writer, producer, and Dora Mavor Moore Award–nominated director. She is the creator and co-host, along with Falen Johnson, of the CBC podcast The Secret Life of Canada about the untold and under-told history of the country. Select writing credits include The Hallway, Nowheresville, The Postman, and Treemonisha. She has been playwright-in­-residence at a number of theatres, including Obsidian Theatre, the Blyth Festival, and the Stratford Festival. She is a graduate of the University of Alberta’s theatre program.

Book preview

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The Flood

and other misadventures of the female prisoners of the St. Lawrence Market

Leah Simone Bowen

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

The Flood © Copyright

2018

by Leah Simone Bowen

First edition: October

2018

Jacket art and design by Ashley Wong, www.ashlwong.com

Author photograph by Adam Rankin Photography

Playwrights Canada Press

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:: [e-mail] :: www.playwrightscanada.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

For professional or amateur production rights, please contact Playwrights Canada Press.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bowen, Leah Simone, author

          The flood : and other misadventures of the female prisoners of the

St. Lawrence Market / Leah Simone Bowen.

A play.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN

978

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77091

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(softcover).--

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978

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978

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ISBN

978

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Playwrights Canada Press acknowledges that we operate on land which, for thousands of years, has been the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe, Métis, and Haudenosaunee peoples. Today, this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and play here.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts — which last year invested $

153

million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country — the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

This play is dedicated to my mother, my grandmothers and those mothers I never had the chance to hold but who made me.

Contents

Playwright’s Notes

Characters

Setting

The Flood

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

Scene Eleven

Scene Twelve

Scene Thirteen

Scene Fourteen

Scene Fifteen

Scene Sixteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Landmarks

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Table of Contents

Start of Text

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

Scene Ten

Scene Eleven

Scene Twelve

Scene Thirteen

Scene Fourteen

Scene Fifteen

Scene Sixteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Page List

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Playwright’s Notes

This play was inspired by the St. Lawrence Market prison and accounts of incarcerated