Best Under-appreciated Play From an Obscure Corner of the Continent

This show about a coal-mining family in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, played to capacity crowds of about 35 every night of its run at the matchbox-sized Phoenix II, but the cast had enough talent to fill a major hall. Especially Emily Ackerman -- she did a loud, dead-on version of Maggie, the scrappy heroine who's watched a local mine claim three men in her family. For some reason the author of the novella this play was based on has been scarcely recognized outside of Canada, but his name, for the record, is Sheldon Currie.