It was her own mom’s experiences packing up the kids nearly every year and moving to a new city that inspired Cathy Elliott’s one-woman musical.
“If we were army brats, my mom would have at least had a sense of community,” said Elliott, whose dad was a businessman constantly going from place to place and taking his family with him.
“But what happened is, she felt more isolated and found it difficult to talk to people.”
It is Sharon, a woman like her own mother, who is the sole character in Moving Day. It is being presented this weekend as part of Eastern Front Theatre’s Super Nova festival.
“Sharon is a spark, she has a big heart and means well, but she realizes she has been hurtful to her family,” said Elliott.
The play is about a housewife who is packing up her house for yet another move as her husband climbs farther up the career ladder. The date is July 20, 1969, and man is about to land on the moon. “She has done her packing in record time, so she is going to settle down with her TV dinner and her lime rickey and gin,” said Elliott. “She is forced to look through endless boxes in search for the radio so she can at least listen to it.”
What happens as she ruffles through each box is a little drinking as she begins to reveal more about her life.
“She goes on a downward spiral, and disaster happens,” Elliott said. She turned the play into a musical, setting Sharon’s frustration to song, to lighten the story a bit.
“Mom hasn’t seen it yet,” Elliott said, adding her mom now lives in Saint John, N.B. “I don’t want her to just read the script; I want her to see me do it.”
