Since an early age, Sarah Joy Bennett “played pretend in the basement,” and as an adult, she’s turned that game into a theatrical career that brings her to Perth this summer to play the saucy Olive in the Classic Theatre Festival’s production of “The Voice of the Turtle.”
 
Bennett, who grew up in Ottawa and attended the arts-centred Canterbury High School, relishes her complex role in the second show of the Festival’s inaugural season, bringing professional summer theatre to Perth. “The Voice of the Turtle” explores women’s rapidly changing roles during the Second World War, and offers a still frank and relevant exploration of sexual double standards.
 
“The Voice of the Turtle is very contemporary, especially the way people talk about relationships,” Bennett says. “We think things are hard now, but our grandparents faced many of the same issues. One of the things I really like about the show is the way characters invest so much energy into being nonchalant and cool when deep down they care about one another so intensely.”
 
Getting into her role of the wartime woman who loves every man she meets, Bennett mined some of her family history, reading the letters her grandparents wrote to one another during the Second World War. He was an RAF pilot who met his true love in Winnipeg while training, and three years of letters provide insights into a period that is often glossed over and romanticized.
 
“You can see how people would throw themselves into relationships because no one knew what would happen tomorrow,” Bennett says,  “and my character, Olive, enjoys things that are transient because she is very much a product of those times.”
 
Bennett played in her first professional show as an acting apprentice with Odyssey Theatre at age 14, working with Jeffrey Aarles (who starred in the Classic Theatre Festival’s production of “Blithe Spirit” earlier this summer.)
 
She fell in love with Odyssey’s brand of physical theatre and the commedia dell’arte stylings of colours, masks, and magic. She says she is most at home doing physical, acrobatic theatre, and proceeded to engage in the three-year theatre program at Concordia University, “which is not what I wanted but what I needed, because they are honest with you. They told us that you can’t wait for a theatre career to happen to you in Canada, you have to go out and make it work for you. You need to be prepared to wear many hats.”
 
As a consequence, Bennett has a wide skill set that includes lighting, publicity, costuming, stage management, and performance.
 
Bennett has a remarkable training resume, having studied in Paris with master of clown theatre Philippe Gauthier (while working at a Canadian-themed bar called The Moose) as well as in Italy with commedia dell’arte master Antonio Fava. It was the latter experience that opened Bennett’s eyes to the universality of theatre, since students were there from around the globe, “and we had to find a way to perform with each other without having a common language. It forces you to pay such close attention to each other, and that’s such a key for acting, not being completely focused on yourself.”
 
Upon returning to Canada, Bennett has performed a range of roles, including a touring stint in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” for Ontario schools where, she says, “It’s such an honest audience. Kids never lie to you.” She also recently completed a Disney movie, part of a high school musical series, called “Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure,” and plans soon to produce a new play by her partner, Dan Leberg, “The Tragic Ballad of One-Eyed Jack.”
 
Bennett has also fallen in love with burlesque, an often misunderstood form of entertainment undergoing a major revival. Bennett notes the historic link between vaudeville and burlesque, and notes that musicals that are now considered family entertainment have their roots in turn-of-the-century burlesque shows.
        
In her burlesque role as Cherry Temple (the Siamese twin of Shirley Temple, from whom she was devilishly separated by a jealous musician), Bennett says she performs with dancers, singers, fire jugglers, and old time comics.
 
“People think of burlesque as strip tease, and yet there is a story line, large set pieces, and much interaction with an audience.”
 
She says that burlesque is, in a subversive way, a rejection of society’s obsessions with a version of sex as a means of selling products. “People who are so-called sexy all look the same with serious, dazed faces, and in burlesque, we redefine what is sexy and sensual, and you see people of all shapes and sizes performing, which shows us there are a million different ways to be beautiful and revel in yourself, not in the homogenized way it’s presented to us in car ads.”
 
Bennett recently participated in an international burlesque exhibition in Paris, performing in the same theatre where legendary performer Maurice Chevalier got his  start.
 
It’s Bennett’s willingness to explore the full roundness of a character that brings Olive to life in the current production of “The Voice of the Turtle.” When the show closes, Bennett will return to Toronto and follow-up on her family research, planning a trip to retrace the path her grandparents took after they finally tied the knot and honeymooned in the UK, staying in the same spots the young couple haunted over 60 years ago.
 
The Voice of the Turtle runs through August 29, Wed.-Sat. at 8 pm, with 2 pm matinees every Wed., Sat., & Sun. Tickets are available online at www.classictheatre.ca or by calling 1-877-283-1283. In-person purchases can be made at Tickets Please, located inside of Jo’s Clothes at 39 Foster Street in Perth.