There is a radio in Sisters of ’78. Tucked into the corner of a kitchen decked out in orange-and-yellow daisy-print wallpaper, it broadcasts news bulletins about mounting tensions at Fleck Manufacturing. But the kitchen is empty. Meanwhile, women are gathering centre stage, stamping their feet against the bitter chill of winter as they wave placards in defiance. One reads: “A woman’s place is in the union.”
Now playing at Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius, Kristen Da Silva’s fervent new play revisits a little-known chapter of Ontario’s labour history. In 1978, the predominantly female workforce at an automotive wiring plant near London, Ontario spent 163 days on strike against appalling working conditions and a management unwilling to negotiate a first union contract. Their battle helped reshape provincial labour law, giving rise to what became known as the Fleck Amendment. Da Silva approaches this collective history through the intimate struggles of fictional women on the picket line.
Her account centres on Maeve (Madison Hayes-Crook), a housewife itching to return to work after years spent raising her family. Her husband Andrew (Aiden Altow) disapproves. “I always take care of you,” he declares with a smirk of nonchalant authority. But with Andrew away at RCMP training and their daughter starting school, Maeve suddenly has time on her hands — and a chance to escape the confines of domestic life.
She finds work at Fleck Manufacturing, a plant that is perpetually hiring. It’s not hard to see why. Nicknamed “the butcher shop,” the place has a grim record of workplace injuries. Downstage centre, Sean Mulcahy’s set features an ever-present press machine bearing an “Out of Order” sign — a diagnosis that might well apply to the entire operation. With safety precautions routinely ignored and workers denied even bathroom breaks, it’s no wonder Joyce (Alyssa LeClair) is gathering signatures to form a union.
The struggle, however, is getting anyone to listen. Even after enough signatures have been collected, manager Lumpy (Geoffrey Pounsett) refuses to recognise the workers’ organisation, insisting they bring their grievances to management individually.
Da Silva’s writing thrives on the collectivity the factory seeks to dismantle, a quality Moore brings vividly to life through her spirited ensemble. Their conversations have a rough-edged cadence, punctuated by clipped contractions. Hayes-Crook deftly charts Maeve’s transformation from a poised, self-effacing housewife into a woman emboldened by the lively camaraderie of her colleagues Joyce, Natalie (Kirstyn Russelle), Angie (Kait Post) and Laurie (Shaina Silver-Baird).
Their crackling exchanges capture the texture of these women’s everyday lives as they trade rumours about injuries in other departments. At Fleck, mistreatment is business as usual. When 20-year-old Angie becomes the target of Lumpy’s sexual remarks, the others promptly brush off Maeve’s suggestion to report him. Later, when Maeve tries to recruit Laurie, a sympathetic supervisor and widowed mother, into the union, she refuses outright, fearing she might jeopardise the job her family depends on.
The tension between the domestic and the collective shapes Mulcahy’s largely static set. Stage right is Maeve’s kitchen, which she shares with her mother-in-law Margaret (Cara Hunter). To the left, a larger space framed by a chequered steel backdrop is transformed by director Mary Francis Moore into various working-class settings. First, the cramped factory floor, where the women toil for hours on end; then the bar, where they gather to let off steam; and finally, the street, where their fight spills into the open.
But the machinery of oppression extends well beyond the factory walls. The 1978 strike drew widespread media attention, not least for the extraordinary police presence: some 500 Ontario Provincial Police officers were deployed against a workforce of roughly 80 women. Economic power had the backing of institutional force, and the women had to contend with both.
Da Silva is particularly attentive to the emotional cost of that struggle. Her script follows the fluctuations of morale over months of striking, allowing determination to coexist with exhaustion and doubt. In a stirring second-act monologue, Joyce speaks with matter-of-fact bluntness, neither romanticizing their cause nor disguising the possibility of defeat. Yet as LeClair’s booming voice fills the theatre, her body trembles with emotion. Whatever happens, she declares, she will remain on the picket line. At the performance I attended, the audience broke into enthusiastic applause before LeClair had even finished speaking.
History often reaches us as a dry succession of dates and impersonal milestones, much like those news bulletins from the kitchen radio. But Sisters of ’78 makes that past enthralling. By capturing these women in all their doubts and contradictions, Da Silva rescues the Fleck strike from the black-and-white stillness of archival photographs. Onstage, that past regains colour, texture — and even music. Twice, the action gives way to song: first the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing,” then Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” The women sing at the top of their lungs, their bodies electrified by the rhythm.
Husbands, bosses and even the police may refuse to listen. Still – memorably and inspiringly — these women keep singing.
Sisters of ’78 runs at Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius through October 18, 2026. For tickets and showtimes, visit theatreaquarius.org.
© Alessandro Stracuzzi, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
