The Weavers (2022)

Ida Red is solving crimes with her friends on Gumshoe.com when a knock at the door finally gets her attention. Nathan says his car is stuck in the snow and his cell phone is dead. Ida has her doubts but she finally lets him in and calls a tow truck. Although ostensibly he is a water purifier salesman, It becomes clear that Nathan is working with a man who has gradually bought up all of the property/farms in this rural area. Ida is the last hold out, but she develops other plans as she sizes up Nathan and shrewdly determines what he is up to. He learns that she is formerly a bootlegger. She gets his attention by searching out all sorts of personal details about him online and he admits that things are not so great with his job-or his long distance love life. The tow truck calls to say the snow is too bad and they can't get through, but suddenly his car alarm goes off. Ida sends him out to deal with it-but also turns on her web cam and discovers that tough guys who appear to be his colleagues are trying to muscle-in. When he returns she confronts him with her pistol, "the old persuader,' and insists he call them off-which he does. She offers him an alternative gig with better pay-a visit to a quonset hut where his employer stores all the items he has pilfered from previous farms he has taken over. Wearing a camera that allows Ida to identify treasurers remotely Nathan goes on this quest but turns off his camera when he sees something special. Ida smells a rat and fakes a threatening break in from the goons that Nathan had earlier called off. Nathan demonstrates his loyalty by speedily coming to her rescue only to discover he has been duped. Ida propositions Nathan. He and his sweet heart could join her in a renewed but now legit business to start a distillery. He produces what he found in the quonset hut-a dusty box addressed to Ida. She opens it to find a kitten patterned sweater she had many years before knit for her estranged daughter. He urges her to try to connect with the daughter just as Ida has given him the push to propose to his sweetheart. The play ends with Ida writing an email to her daughter. Throughout the play Thrasher-a stuffed dog-sits on Ida's couch while she behaves as if he is a real ferocious dog. This is a comedy set in rural Saskatchewan and informed by concerns regarding the loss of small family farms and the loss of community and neighbor to neighbor support systems that have been lost with the family farms.