The Bush-Ladies: In Their Own Words

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

Molly Thom is a Toronto-based director, actor, and theatre
administrator. She is active as a dramaturge and is the founder of
Toronto’s New Ideas Festival, which develops original writing for the
stage.

The Bush-Ladies is adapted from the writings of Susanna Moodie,
Catharine Parr Traill, Anne Langton, and Anna Jameson. In the 1830s,
these four well-born and highly educated women came to Canada and
subsequently wrote accounts of their lives that have made them icons of
early Canadian literary endeavor. Thom uses the women’s own words to
illuminate the immigrant experience.

In her fascinating introduction, Thom describes how her play evolved
from a chronicle of life in the backwoods of Canada, with all four women
writing largely about the same things—harsh weather, insects, clearing
the land, loneliness, and privation—to an examination of questions
concerning the women themselves. Why did they come? What were their
expectations? What did they find when they got here? And, most
importantly, who were they and how did they survive?

Although in reality none of the women ever met (apart from Moodie and
Traill, who were sisters), in Thom’s play all four characters exchange
opinions, gossip, and take tea together. They are a study in contrasts:
Moodie, author of Roughing It in the Bush, is romantic; Traill, who
wrote The Backwoods of Upper Canada, is more proper and restrained;
Langton, author of Gentlewoman in Upper Canada, is the most socially
aware character; and Jameson, author of Winter Studies and Summer
Rambles in Canada, is portrayed as an adventurer.

The four characters create an indelible sense of community as they
explore the tribulations and triumphs of frontier life. They make us
laugh and at the same time think deeply about our heritage and about how
much, and how little, things have changed since pioneer days.