The author of a play about Sara Corning says she hopes the production will help spread the word about Corning and make more people familiar with her remarkable humanitarian work.
Chris Bolger, secretary of the Sara Corning Society, wrote the play, Memories of Sara Corning, that will be presented in Yarmouth Friday, Sept. 13, the day before a statue of Corning is unveiled.
The one-person production – featuring actress Martha Irving of LunaSea Theatre Company in Halifax – will be staged at Yarmouth North Baptist Church. The statue of Corning will be unveiled the next day – Saturday, Sept. 14 – on Parade Street at the site of the former Zion Baptist Church, behind the Yarmouth County Museum.
The plan had been to present the play at Th’YARC and to have more than one performance, but things changed recently after an application to Arts Nova Scotia for funding was unsuccessful.
Bolger, though, takes a positive view, saying Yarmouth North Baptist is a great venue for the play.
“The script lends itself to that sort of environment,” Bolger said. “It involves a lot of introspection and reflection from a very aging Sara looking back, questioning what she’s seen, what she’s gone through ... There will be sound, there will be lights, there’ll be all of that, but it will be confined to the chancel, this historic chancel.”
There will be just one performance (Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.).
There had been a good deal of support for having the play at Th’YARC, Bolger saying, for instance, that Sandy Fevens, the arts centre’s general manager, was “super with me, really supportive.”
Bolger isn’t sure why the application to Arts Nova Scotia was denied but said it’s not uncommon. A number of factors can come into play, including who’s on the panel, what they’re looking for etc.
“Some years they’re looking for more abstract expressions,” Bolger said. “Sometimes they have a leaning in some other direction. It’s very difficult to say.”
Sara Corning (1872-1969) was a Yarmouth County native and nurse who is considered a heroine for her efforts in rescuing and caring for thousands of orphans during 11 years of service in Armenia, Turkey and Greece between 1919 and 1930.
Bolger recalls thinking a few years ago, after the Sara Corning Society was formed, that the best way to get the story out about Corning would be a theatrical production. She was part of a group that put something together about Corning as part of Seafest in 2016. It was presented in the community room at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
“It was a first step, but I made it clear that what really was needed was a full play,” Bolger said. So after the success of what they’d done at the AGNS, Bolger put it back to the writing group she was involved in. Here was a chance to create something bigger, to write a script for a new, full-scale production. No one took her up on it, however, and so she took it on herself.
It proved to be a lot of work and the project has evolved. The play originally had 11 characters, but LunaSea had a vision of taking it on the road. For this, they said, it would have to be reworked, pared down. LunaSea’s promotional slogan is “Giving voice to women’s stories and perspectives.” They wanted Corning’s story to be told.
“LunaSea is very eager to do it,” Bolger said. “They’ve been very enthusiastic right from the start.”
Bolger says she finds Corning’s story compelling because she showed that anyone can have a positive impact.
“She is inspiring because she is one person, a common person, who did extraordinary things,” Bolger said, “which means it’s possible for any of us to do those sorts of things, to look beyond the political and the divisive, and actually make a difference to people’s lives. It’s not about me and it’s not about you. It’s about serving others. She lived to serve others, a perfect epitaph.”
