While the play is a true ensemble piece, it centres on Germaine Lauzon (France Perras) who has hit the jackpot (kind of) in winning one million trading stamps. The stamps have to be painstakingly put in booklets before cashing in for merchandise – a labour-intensive process. To simultaneously get the job done and celebrate her good fortune, Germaine invites relatives, friends and neighbours over to help paste stamps. The party rapidly turns into a gabfest with few filled booklets finding their way back into Germaine’s box. She hardly helps her cause by taking the opportunity to gloat.

This Ruby Slippers production brings together twelve veteran female actors who characterize women of a certain generation who share their joy and their misery of detached husbands, abusive boyfriends, and dull lives. In a couple of scenes in the play that feature hilarious choral dialogue: the women’s day-to-day mundane routine and the enormous delight that BINGO affords these women poignantly illustrate how these women got through the week.

The production under the steady guidance of director Diane Brown, affords several characters a confessional monologue direct to the audience under a spotlight. Kerry Sandomirsky’s heartfelt soliloquy as Angéline Sauvé stood out as particularly poignant.

Apart from the dozen actors in the main roles, emerging talents Pippa Mackie who plays Germaine’s daughter Linda, Agnes Tong who plays the troubled Lise and Daria Banu making her professional debut as Ginette.

Each cast member took a proportional responsibility for the show’s success. Though, I was personally delighted to see a rare on-stage performance by Sarah Rodgers as Lisette, a women who is clearly a single level higher in the social echelon. I would have liked to see more of Emilie Leclerc as black sheep Pierrette on stage.

Drew Facey’s deliberately austere set of Madame Lauzon’s modestly furnished kitchen is reasonably authentic in terms of time and place. The set is notable for a crucifix prominently hung on the wall, once a fixture in Quebec’s working class homes.