That Summer

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

David French has won many awards, in both Canada and abroad, for such
plays as Jitters (1986), Of the Fields Lately (1991), and Salt Water
Moon (1988). This latest work, That Summer, is a memory play set in 1958
and 1990. On Memorial Day, Margaret Ryan has returned from Vermont to
the Ontario cottage-country resort where she vacationed with her family
32 years ago. We watch the adult watch her younger self relive that
special summer, with its attendant joys, sorrows, tragedies,
heartbreaks, and revelations.

Recalling Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, That Summer is a lyrical and
beautifully constructed meditation on the passage of time and the
transition from one generation to the next. David French is a playwright
at the height of his powers.