What a Young Wife Ought to Know

By Hannah Moscovitch

Just don’t lie down and no child will come.

It’s Ottawa in the 1920s, pre-legalized birth control. Sophie, a young working-class girl, falls madly in love with and marries a stable-hand named Jonny. After two difficult childbirths, doctors tell Sophie she shouldn’t have any more children, but don’t tell her how to prevent it. When Sophie inevitably becomes pregnant again, she faces a grim dilemma.

In an unflinching look at love, sex, and fertility, and inspired by real stories of mothers during the Canadian birth-control movement of the early twentieth century, one of Canada’s most celebrated playwrights vividly recreates a couple’s struggles with reproduction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Aug 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781770919884

Hannah Moscovitch

Hannah Moscovitch is an acclaimed Canadian playwright, TV writer, and librettist whose work has been widely produced in Canada and around the world. Recent stage work includes Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes and Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story (co-created with Christian Barry and Ben Caplan). Hannah has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama, Trillium Book Award, the Nova Scotia Masterworks Arts Award, the Scotsman Fringe First and the Herald Angel Awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize administered by Yale University. She has been nominated for the international Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Drama Desk Award, and Canada’s Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. She is a playwright-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. She spends her time between Halifax and Los Angeles.

Book preview

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what a

young wife

ought

to know

also by hannah moscovitch

Bunny

East of Berlin

Infinity (with music by Njo Kong Kie)

Little One and Other Plays

The Mill Part Two: The Huron Bride

The Russian Play and Other Short Works

This is War

what a

young wife

ought

to know

hannah moscovitch

playwrights canada press

Toronto

What a Young Wife Ought to Know © Copyright 2019 by Hannah Moscovitch

First edition: August 2019

Jacket design by Monnet Design

Author photo © Alejandro Santiago

Playwrights Canada Press

202-269 Richmond St. W., Toronto, ON M5V 1X1

416.703.0013 :: [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:

Ian Arnold at Catalyst TCM

312-100 Broadview Ave., Toronto, ON M4M 3H3

416.568.8673 :: [e-mail]

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: What a young wife ought to know / Hannah Moscovitch.

Names: Moscovitch, Hannah, author.

Description: First edition. | A play.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190082933 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190082941 | ISBN 9781770919860 (softcover) | ISBN 9781770919877 (PDF)

| ISBN 9781770919884 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781770919891 (Kindle)

Classification: LCC PS8626.O837 W53 2019 | DDC C812/.6-dc23

Playwrights Canada Press acknowledges that we operate on land, which, for thousands of years, has been the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, 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), Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

Funding logos

For Elijah Barry

Contents

punctuation

notes

production history

characters

what a young wife ought to know

acknowledgements

about the author

Landmarks

Cover

Half Title

Title

Copyright Page

Dedication

Start of Text

Table of Contents

what a young wife ought to know

acknowledgements

about the author

Page List

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punctuation

Dash (  —  ): a dash at the end of a line of dialogue indicates a cut-off

Dash 2 (  —  ): a dash in the middle a line of dialogue indicates a quick change in thought or a stutter

Ellipsis ( . . . ): an ellipsis at the end of a line indicates a trail-off

Ellipsis 2( . . . ): an ellipsis in the middle of a line indicates a hesitation or a mental search for a thought or a word

Ellipsis 3 ( . . . dialogue . . . ): an ellipses on either side