The Bee’s Knees is a new play with music, written and directed by Judy Reynolds, that opened at The Theatre Centre on Friday night.  It’s set during and after WW1 and the main theme is women getting involved in politics in Canada and the often bizarre (by contemporary standards) opposition to that.  It’s pure coincidence that it premiered a few days after the biggest setback for women’s rights in the western world in decades.

So we start with the rather cynical granting of the vote to some Canadian women by a government hard pressed in the 1917 “conscription election” then fast forward to the post war world of flappers, radio, speakeasies and the Charleston where war widow Dolores Cole (Shannon Pitre) has been pressured into running for Parliament by a coterie of female friends led by her manipulative younger sister Bernie (Madeline Elliott Kennedy).  They are opposed by the sleazy incumbent Jerry Fields (Michael Pollard) and his friends in radio and the newspapers.  And by their very old fashioned Aunt Virginia (Birgitte Solem).

It’s all rather complicated by the girls’ mother Frances McKay (Françoise Balthazar) being in a mental hospital because of incurable viral catatonia.  Dolores and the doctor; Edwin Becker (Kenzie Delo), treating her fall in love which further complicates things.  Jerry will stop at nothing to get reelected but is vulnerable because of his long term affair with night club singer and bar owner Rita Blue (Jamillah Ross).  This ups the ante around prohibition as well as letting the writer work in some cleverly constructed musical numbers.

Pretty much everyone is playing dirty pool one way or another and ultimately the question becomes whether Dolores stays in the race and who will support her if she does.  It’s all quite interesting as a satirical look at politics in the dawn of mass media populism.  As a play it’s very busy with many short scenes and lots of prop shifting which is smoothed over to some extent by the musical elements.  The acting is generally rather good and Ross is a more than decent singer.

The mix of satirical comedy, didacticism and sentimentality comes off quite well.  It’s often quite funny and the subject matter is important but ultimately it’s perhaps a bit too nice and lacks the the biting satirical edge that makes, say, The Master Plan so funny and so incisive.

The Bee’s Knees plays at the Theatre Centre until November 24th.

Photo credits: Marlowe Andreyko