Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter

Something is happening in the basement of the Hope Shelter. Jabber and Ciel have locked themselves away with a piano. One can’t speak, the other can’t play, and yet together they transcend their desperate surroundings creating a world of beauty, filled with joy and love.

Based on Tennyson’s Enoch Arden and the Melodrama for Piano by Richard Strauss, Judith Thompson’s biting prose gives voice to these forgotten lovers. Judith Thompson is one of Canada’s top award winning playwrights, whose work has received great acclaim in the UK, including Perfect Pie (Old Vic, RSC and Traverse Theatre 2006), My Pyramids (Traverse Theatre 2005) and I am Yours ( Royal Court 1998). Jenny Salisbury, co-founder of S.O.S. Theatre in Toronto, is currently completing her MA in Text and Performance at RADA.

“Enoch Arden is the perfect marriage between Thompson’s poetic inner self and her tuned-in social and political conscience.’
The Globe and Mail

“An emotionally rich, highly theatrical work...Not since The Drawer Boy have a pair of friends’ hurts and joys been rendered so powerfully, so cathartically onstage.”
Now Magazine

“…Judith Thompson’s excellent and thought provoking writing this makes for a truly memorable theatrical event.”
Bryan Johnston

Originally commissioned and directed by Maria Lamont
Music by Richard Strauss