After Baba's Funeral and Sweet and Sour Pickles

Jenifer Lepiano was a writer and drama teacher in Toronto.

These two small, brilliant gems are most often performed together. Both are set in smalltown Manitoba and both share the central character, Netty Danischuk, a woman in her sixties who, with her tireless energy, has held her family together during the lean years. Now, when the others begin to move on, Netty stays behind.

The delightfully Ukrainian flavour of Ted Galay’s plays does not mask their essential universality. In After Baba’s Funeral the son returns home for his grandmother’s funeral. The conversation in the kitchen following the ceremony is a delicately wrought revelation of love and disappointment, of the tensions of blame and guilt binding a close-knit family that no longer shares daily life. The characters — husband, son, sister, brother-in-law and Netty — are portrayed with tender humour. As they talk about their common past they come together in a moment of healing before going off again into their separate futures.

Sweet and Sour Pickles is a dialogue between Netty and her sister-in-law, Olenka, who drops in while Netty is engaged in her annual labour of preparing pickles, this year from a new recipe. Olenka’s husband has recently died and it is rumoured that already Olenka is seeing another man. As the two women join in their familiar task Netty faces up to the character of her dead brother and the alcoholism that spoiled Olenka’s marriage. Before the last sealer jar is filled, she reaches a clarity of understanding that enables her to wish Olenka well in her new bid for happiness. We see that Netty, although she once again remains behind, a fixed point in her family’s horizon, is a woman who is changing and growing within the tiny realm given her to hold.