Vancouver's urban ink puts on a one-woman show about the sinking of the Loretta B and the decline of the fishing industry.
The tragic and true shipwreck story from Galiano Island comes to life in Women in Fish, a one woman show from Vancouver’s urban ink.
The show tells the fate of fishing packer The Loretta B on a sad day in September 1962 when it keeled in a freak storm —sending five men and one woman into the violent sea. Only Eileen Lorenz survived.
“Between the video that’s behind me and myself, we try to tell the story of what happened that night in 1962,” says Rosemary Georgeson, who performs the show. She was just five years old and remembers that fateful night: “My father was a fisherman and it was a lifetime occupation— it was something you started when you were born, basically, and you were a fisherman until the day you weren’t here anymore,” Georgeson says.
“I was with my mother. We were home in Georgeson Bay, listening to it unfold on a purple radio we had in the kitchen. The story came in that the Loretta B was down and there were heavy winds. Growing up in a fishing family, you hear the heavy wind, and you get nervous.”
Women in Fish was originally mounted on Galiano Island in 2004 before being made into a CBC radio documentary.
“She’s the voice of the five year old child watching her mother wait. She holds the stories of an industry that is dying out. She holds the memories of her family that have been involved in the fishing industry since the beginning of time. She’s a person that’s waiting; she’s waiting to see how it all unfolds,” Georgeson says.
“It's a really powerful show. I can't see myself ever not being a part of it because the show is a part of me, through history, through the stories in the show, they came from my community, my family and we were there for it. We were all there waiting. It still feels like forever.”
Women in Fish
By Rosemary Georgeson
Multi-media Storytelling
PG14+
Saturday May 21, 6 p.m.*
Sunday, May 22, 4 p.m.
Metro Studio
(1411 Quadra)