The Hungry Spirit: Selected Plays and Prose

Ian C. Nelson is assistant director of libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan and director of La Troupe du Jour, Regina Summer Stage.

At last, a volume with a Canadian homestead play (human nature versus
the climate) that is not Robertson Davies’s Overlaid or Gwen Pharis
Ringwood’s Still Stands the House! Elsie Park Gowan was a contemporary
and friend of Gwen Pharis Ringwood. Both were “extremely active as
teachers, actors, adjudicators, and directors,” and their stage
writings significantly fed the little-theatre movement and the regional
Dominion Drama Festivals between 1930 and 1950. Their careers seem to
have destined GPR for our collective memory and EPG for eclipse and
obscurity, despite Gowan’s opus of some 200 scripts (to Ringwood’s
60). Although she was championed by Andrew Allan on the CBC (“in many
ways Canada’s national theatre” during the period), and had garnered
national and international radio audiences, it was probably Gowan’s
move to radio—specifically, the radio series—that stamped her work
as ephemeral.

Moira Day’s anthology rescues EPG from this obscurity by presenting
six plays plus two other broadcast writings for the public. She also
gives an acute analysis of EPG’s situation, her writing style, and her
subject matter, all of which contributed to her peculiar career path.
Not surprisingly, there is a strong element of feminism in the original
texts, but it is anchored in the social situations of the time and
place. Of particular value are the interviews preceding each playscript;
here Day proves herself very well prepared and EPG responds with
articulate candor about the genesis and intent of her works.

This anthology comes across as a close collaboration between the
playwright and the anthologist. It is an important addition to the
cultural history of the West from the point of view of two articulate
women.