Quiet In The Land At The Blyth Festival
“For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful
matters against them that are quiet in the land.”
Psalm 35:20
Quiet in the Land by Anne Chislett, the only play being presented this season on the Blyth Festival’s enchanting outdoor Harvest Stage, has a fascinating origin story.
In the late 1970s, a small community of Amish settled just north of Blyth. Not only did the Amish live apart on their farms and shun most modern conveniences, they spoke an antique dialect of German. They had as little to do as possible with the “high people” who surrounded them. Their presence attracted curiosity, misunderstanding, and resentment. Some people took to hurling stones at the black buggies they used for transportation.
Janet Amos, the then artistic director of the Blyth Festival, asked playwright Anne Chislett to see if there might be a play there. Chislett might well have come up with a once over lightly treatment that anticipated today’s pop culture take on the Amish as a quaint and almost cuddly subculture.
Instead, and to her credit, Chislett created a hard-edged Canadian classic that deals with powerful themes of faith, immigration, assimilation, xenophobia, cultural change, and technological progress. Quiet in the Land is a sturdy piece, a bit rough-hewn and as plain spoken and unadorned as the people she wrote about.
Director Severn Thompson, who is also Blyth’s Associate Artistic Director, has wisely chosen to mirror Chislett’s language in her staging. There is a straightforward simplicity in the performances and stagecraft in Quiet in the Land that lends an almost mythic quality to the story.
In 1917, Canada and the rest of Western world went to war, putting the Amish and Mennonite communities of Ontario in legal jeopardy. Canada expected them to register for conscription, enlist, and “do their duty.” Their pacifist faith dictated otherwise.
Quiet in the Land centers on the relationship between Christy Bauman (a most impressive Randy Hughson), a stern patriarch and bishop of his sect, and his son Yock (Landon Doak).
Christy, with the help of his deacon Zepp Brubacher (a good-natured James Dallas Smith), guides his flock with a steely determination to resist the changes that are affecting the Amish community. A seemingly simple improvement like adding rubber to the wheels of the traditional buggies could be cause for a congregation to split apart.
Yock, however, has been touched by the advances of the twentieth century and he is fascinated by them. He has friends outside the community and he is drifting away from his faith.
Menno Miller (a nicely understated Richard Comeau), a neighbour and friend of Yock’s, is also at odds with Christy’s orthodoxy, but his interests are strictly religious and doctrinal. He sees adopting modern technology like tractors as no threat to his religious beliefs.
Both Yock and Menno are sweet on Kate (Shelayna Christante), Zepp’s daughter, but Kate has eyes only for Yock.
An inevitable blow up between Yock and his father results in Yock fleeing the community. He enlists in the army, goes to war, and becomes a national hero for wiping out an entire trench of German soldiers.
In the words of Christy, he has “touched the unholy thing.” Is reconciliation possible?
Director Thompson does an admirable job of bringing the world of Quiet in the Land to life. Several supernumerary characters, uncredited in the programme, but including Blyth Artistic Director Gil Garratt and his daughters Gloria and Goldie, deftly suggest the larger community.
She has her characters speak in thick accents when dealing with the outside world (nice work by dialect coach Alison Deon). At home they speak with Canadian accents.
Thompson has also drawn nicely restrained performances from her cast in roles that in less sure hands might have tended to the soap operatic. Hughson shows us the terrible toll rigid religious orthodoxy can take on well-intentioned believers. Doak is heartrending when he returns from the war to tell his father, who refuses to open the door to him, that he was right about keeping the wider world away.
Christante lets us see the anguish of a woman who has entered into a loveless marriage when her true love has fled.
As O’Rourke, an Irish neighbour of the community, sometimes friend, sometimes antagonist, Geoffrey Armour turns in one of his best Blyth performances. The scene in which the drunken O’Rourke bursts in to let the “shirker” Amish know that his son has returned legless from the war is harrowing.
Nice work, too, from George Meanwell as a visiting Amish bishop and as a Canadian Army officer whose disdain for these German immigrants is palpable.
As is true of many Blyth productions, music plays a key role in Quiet in the Land. Scenes are bracketed with what I assume are actual Amish hymns. They are recorded, beautifully sung, and presumably the work of sound designer Lyon Smith. Unfortunately, the programme provides no further information on their provenance, an unfortunate oversight.
Set designer Sean Mulcahy has provided an ingenious set dominated by two moveable set pieces that are reconfigured in different ways to create both interiors and exteriors.
I was reminded of Robert LePage’s ponderous set pieces in this season’s Macbeth at the Stratford Festival where they served much the same purpose. At Blyth, moved efficiently by Amish farmers, they work much better.
Amanda Wong has created costumes that track the subtle variations in Amish fashion and Louise Guinand’s lighting comes to life after sunset.
This is the fourth time Quiet in the Land has been mounted at Blyth. Over forty years after it premiered it still has uncanny relevance and much to teach us.
Quiet In The Land continues at the Blyth Festival’s outdoor Harvest Stage through August 23, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Blyth Festival website.
Footnote: The Harvest stage is, for me, a magical setting in which to see a play. Just be aware that no matter how warm the day might be it gets cool once the sun sets. Bring a light sweater or avail yourself of the blankets that Blyth thoughtfully provides.
Footnote: As they did with Sir John A, Blyth has provided a Study Guide for Quiet in the Land. It has numerous links to sources of additional information about the Amish. So if the show piques your curiosity . . .
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One Response
Thanks for the great review
The recorded Amish hymns you heard are actually us the cast
We recorded them and occasionally sing them live as well, that’s why there’s no accreditation, because it is us.
Cheers!
G