Review: "What a Young Wife Ought to Know" by Hannah Moscovitch

What a Young Wife Ought to Know by Hannah Moscovitch
Published September 2019 via Playwrights Canada Press
★★★★

Ottawa in the 1920s: Sophie is happy enough with her lot as wife and mother, even if money is tight and parenting is tiring. But the doctor has told her that it's not safe for her to have more children—and with Sophie's sister dead young, Sophie is inclined to take such warnings seriously. But there's no legal, or socially acceptable, solution for this other than to not go to bed with her husband in the first place.

It's a depressing piece but frankly really timely. Jonny loves Sophie and wants her to be safe and healthy—but he also wants a big family, and he also wants sex, and he also wants basic human touch. As does Sophie (well, maybe not the big family, not on a laborer's wages). And there's just never going to be a good answer.

This is probably a super interesting play to stage—you could do it with a very minimal set, but it could also be fully immersive. No real surprises (in fact, there's one thing that Sophie intentionally makes clear to the audience early on that could have been used as a shock piece but wasn't, which I appreciate), just a direct story about the consequences of limited health care—and, specifically, reproductive care—availability.