Blyth Festival review: Sisters of ’78 is an authentically Canadian story about standing up for what’s right

Kirstyn Russelle, Shelayna Christante, Madison Hayes-Crook, Cara Hunter, Alyssa LeClair in Sisters of ’78, Blyth Festival 2026.

By Galen Simmons

I had never heard of the Fleck strike of 1978 in Centralia before walking into the Blyth Memorial Community Hall on opening night of playwright Kristen De Silva and director Mary Francis Moore’s Sisters of ’78 on June 12.

But by the time I walked out, I was hoarse from cheering for the basic labour standards the women of the Fleck Manufacturing Plant fought so hard and risked so much for – standards they ultimately won – and from singing along to the phenomenal classic-rock soundtrack from the late ‘70s this particularly moving story was set to.

This play was fantastic from start to finish. The set was a thing of theatrical magic, capturing the factory floor with its large and dangerous machinery, dirty industrial windows and a locker room away from the prying eyes of management. The factory also transitioned perfectly into a small-town bar where the women who worked at Fleck – which produced automotive wiring assemblies in the ‘70s – would meet to voice their frustrations with working conditions, plan union meetings and strategies, and blow off steam.

A separate piece of the set, a kitchen plucked straight from the late ‘70s with its bright-yellow wallpaper and garish green furniture, was built so it could spin in and out of view of the audience, making the scenes featuring Maeve (Madison Hayes-Crook), Andrew (Aiden Altow), Margaret (Cara Hunter) and Christine (Gloria Garratt) feel seamlessly woven into the narrative fabric of this production.

The use of recorded radio-style programming not only offered a natural way to explain much of the historical context needed to place the story at a very specific time in Canadian history when women were still treated as second-class citizens, it also opened the door to the use of some of my favourite classic-rock songs of the decade during scene and set changes.

I definitely didn’t notice the stagehands at work while I sang along to Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind,” among other tunes of the time.

The acting in this production is top-notch. The women, of course, are the stars of the show, and each of them brings something different to the story, from Hayes-Crook’s ability to portray Maeve’s growing dissatisfaction with her marriage to Andrew and her increasing motivation to fighting for what’s right, to Shelayna Christante’s portrayal of the naively hilarious Angie, the youngest worker of the group who stands toe to toe with her sisters and bravely puts her life on the picket line for their collective rights.

Even Shaina Silver-Baird as Laurie – the one union hold-out who suffers the wrath of her co-workers for not joining their cause – offers an important counter-point to the notion of unionizing at that point in Canadian history and the risks is poses not just to the women who joined the union, but to their families as well.

By far, the most stirring performance in the production, in my opinion, is that of Alyssa LeClair as Joyce, the fearless and unwavering union leader who delivers stirring speeches that motivate her fellow plant workers to continue pushing for better, regardless of how many cold, blustery days they spend on the picket line, or how many of them are arrested and threatened by local police.

And while the true antagonists in this story are the plant owners, politicians and local police leadership who allow the illegal threats of violence and union-busting to take place, we as an audience need real, onstage characters to root against.

Those characters come in the form of Lumpy (Geoffrey Pounsett), the slimy, underhanded and sexually aggressive factory manager, and Andrew, Maeve’s demanding, disrespectful and cheating husband. Both Pounsett and Altow do an admirable job portraying men in positions of power who can’t seem to even consider allowing the women around them to gain the basic rights and freedoms they already enjoy.

I can’t recommend enough that you see this play. It’s an important story from our country’s history that not only reminds us how far we’ve come with women’s and workers’ rights, but also how far we still must go to find equity.

Sisters of ’78 runs on the Blyth Festival’s Margaret Stephens Stage until Aug. 9.