All Fall Down

A “crucible-inspired” drama surrounding an inquiry into a doubtful molestation incident in a small-town daycare, All Fall Down is a play about witch-hunting in the late 20th century. The rumours and whispers in the community—every suspicion of the unusual, the eccentric, the unexplained—are added to the growing body of evidence that a heinous evil is afoot in the quiet innocence of the daycare centre. No distinction between circumstantial and substantive evidence is made: the evil is too profound, the threat too great. How, in such a poisoned atmosphere, does one maintain one’s sanity and reason, one’s imagination, compassion and sense of fairness? How does one determine what actually took place? What does one do in the absence of proof?

Cast of 2 women and 2 men.

A "crucible-inspired" drama surrounding an inquiry into a doubtful molestation incident in a small town daycare, All Fall Down is a play about witch-hunting in the late twentieth century. The rumours and whispers in the community - every suspicion of the unusual, the eccentric, the unexplained - are added to the growing body of evidence that a heinous evil is afoot in the quiet innocence of the daycare centre. No distinction between circumstantial and substantive evidence is made: the evil is too profound, the threat too great. How, in such a poisoned atmosphere, does one maintain one's sanity and reason, one's imagination, compassion and sense of fairness? How does one determine what actually took place? What does one do in the absence of proof?

Wendy Lill
Wendy Lill has not only written extensively for radio, magazines, film, television and the stage, but has also been active in national politics. In 1979, while with CBC Radio in Winnipeg, Lill wrote her first play, On the Line, to dramatize the plight of striking Winnipeg garment industry workers. Since then, her plays have gone on to examine the Canadian women’s suffrage movement (The Fighting Days); aboriginal-white relations (The Occupation of Heather Rose, Sisters); pedophilia and mass hysteria (All Fall Down); the slashing of social programs (Corker); and the dangerous lives of coal miners in her adopted province of Nova Scotia (The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum).