Bertha Rand, Winnipeg's Cat Lady, was a familiar figure in the news; many knew her as the mad woman who lived in squalour with over fifty felines. In her tiny house on Queen Street, Bertha took in sick and abandoned cats, battling her neighbours and city hall to save them, taking her cause to the media. In The Queen of Queen Street, Maureen Hunter delves into Bertha Rand's tragic life of poverty and deprivation to bring us a richly layered drama of one woman's will to survive, and a universal story of hope and strength.

Maureen Hunter is one of CanadaÂ?s most accomplished playwrights. Her work has been produced extensively on CanadaÂ?s major stages, as well as in Britain and the U.S. and has been nominated for two Governor General*#146;s Awards, two Dora Mavor Moore Awards (Outstanding New Play) and the Elinor and Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre. Her plays include Atlantis, premiered in English by Manitoba Theatre Centre/Theatre Calgary in 1996 and in French by Theatre de la Manufacture, Montreal, in 1999, and Transit of Venus, which received its Canadian premiere at MTC in 1992 and in 1993 became the first Canadian play ever staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company of Britain. It received its U.S. premiere in 1998 at the Bershire Festival, Stockbridge, Mass. Other plays include Vinci, Footprints on the Moon, Beautiful Lake Winnipeg, and I Met A Bully on the Hill (coâ??written with Martha Brooks). Maureen lives in Winnipeg, where she is currently at work on a new play, Wild Mouth, set in Saskatchewan in 1917, and a libretto of Transit of Venus for Manitoba Opera.

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The play deals with poverty, both physical and emotional. With the pain of loss, the search for love and warmth. And most of all, it's an extended meditation -- a very poetic meditation at times -- on the nature of madness. Hunter begins with Bertha in the Selkirk Mental Hospital in 1968. She shows us the nutty old lady of the legend, the one it's pretty easy to stay distanced from. Then she introduces Alison, a young woman inmate who has attempted suicide and who won't talk to anyone. She's fascinated by Bertha and her unwillingness to give in. She begins to experience Bertha's life herself. And so we see not the crotchety old woman, but a fresh young girl. It's quite a revelation. We see her in Crystal City, Manitoba, playing with her invalid sister. She collects her first cat. But gradually, this Alison/Bertha becomes more and more detached from reality. She also ages almost imperceptibly -- and we age with her. We share her confusion and her loneliness. We understand at the most basic level how a cat could fill the holes in a life.

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