Most Leasiders know that Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood attended Leaside High School in the 1950s (class of 1957). What they may not know is that while there, she wrote, produced and acted in a short musical play along with several of her Leaside friends and classmates. Entitled Synthesia, it was performed in the school auditorium and is one of Atwood’s earliest works – written when she was only 16 and well before she had attained the international renown she currently enjoys. Here’s how it came about:
A novel home economics project
In 1956, Margaret’s home economics teacher, Marion Ricker, assigned a sewing project requiring her students to make stuffed animals. Rebelling against this idea, Margaret suggested doing a different project. Miss Ricker agreed, provided it had a “Home Ec.” theme. The result was Synthesia, an “operetta in one act” about fabrics.
The witty and clever plot involves King Coal, his Queen and their three unmarried daughters, each of whom bears the name of a synthetic material – Nylon, Dacron and Orlon. The “hero” of the story is Sir William Wooley. He’s rich, handsome and eligible but has one “heartrending flaw.” He shrinks after being washed. To solve the problem, the Queen suggests he marry one of the daughters since, being synthetic, “they NEVER shrink from washing.” A coin-toss determines the winner, and Orlon (played by Atwood) becomes Sir William’s wife. The play ends with a nurse arriving onstage carrying a bundle intended to represent their newborn baby, appropriately named Woolerline – a “Wool and Orlon combination.” Throughout the play, music and song are used to support the story and move the action along – including Offenbach’s Barcarole, Gilbert and Sullivan’s When I was a lad from H.M.S. Pinafore, and the classic folk ballad, Oh, My Darling Clementine.
In addition to Atwood herself, all the dramatic roles were acted by Leaside high school students – many of whom were Margaret’s friends:
- -Joan Lay, of 105 Donlea Dr., played the King.
- -Janet Holmes, who lived in Bennington Heights, played the Queen.
- -Ruth Paul played Dacron, and Rosalie Kerbekian of 180 Randolph Rd. was Nylon.
- -Sandra Coomber of 197 Rumsey Rd. played Sir William Wooley.
- -Helen Currie played the nurse.
The pianist was Sally Hergert, who lived at 37 Sharron Dr. Sally still lives in Leaside and is now Sally (Hergert) White. She vividly recalls preparing for the play and its performance.
“We did much of it on the fly because all of us were so busy with extra classes and other things. The costumes were thrown together and weren’t very fancy; and we rehearsed at least once but not much more than that. But we had so much fun. We’d be killing ourselves laughing; and Peggy [Atwood] was so funny, but in a low-key way.”
At performance time, the play was acted in a corner of the auditorium “because that’s where the piano was located. And we didn’t do it before the entire school; we performed it only for the Home Economics class.”
Despite the smaller audience, the play was well received, according to Sally, especially by Miss Ricker. “Peggy put a lot of effort into the play, and after it was over Miss Ricker shook her head in wonder. She was not expecting what we came up with…. She was blown away.”
As far as it’s known, that was the first and last time Synthesia was ever performed. A performance was planned for May 2021 at a literary conference in Australia, but it was cancelled because of Covid. And the full text of the play wasn’t published until 2020 – some 64 years after its debut at Leaside High School.
Maybe it’s time to pull some strings and stage a revival!
