Reviewed by James
Karas
Leaving Home is David French’s first full-length play and it premiered at the Tarragon Theatre, Toronto in 1972. French wrote about a dozen full length plays but he has all but disappeared from the Toronto theatre scene. He was one of the most frequently produced Canadian playwrights and his plays were staged around the world. What happened?
As with so much more, we should be grateful to Coal Mine Theatre for importing the current production by Matchstick Theatre from Halifax. It is a superb production that deserves praise and being seen and praised by all.
Leaving Home is French’s first play about the Mercer family who immigrated to Toronto from Newfoundland in the late 1950’s. He wrote five plays about them and they are “related” to the writer’s family. The Mercer family consists of the parents, Jacob (Andrew Musselman) and his wife Mary (Shelley Thompson), and their two sons Bill (Sam Vigneault) and Ben (Lou Campbell). Bill is getting married and he and his fiancée Kathy (Abby Weisbrot) are having their wedding rehearsal and everyone is getting ready to go to church. Kathy’s mother Minnie (Sharleen Kalayil and her boyfriend Harold (Sebastian Labelle) also arrive at the Mercer kitchen.
Harold deserves an honorable mention. He is an embalmer in a funeral home, where Minnie met him when burying her husband, and he does not utter a word. Most of the time he sits on a couch observing what the others are doing and he is hilarious. You must see him to believe it.
The Mercers are a dysfunctional family where emotions run deep and arguments are simply violent and that includes serious physical altercations. Jacob is a foul-mouthed, short-tempered man who lashes at his wife and children with uncontrollable furor. He thinks his wife and children do not respect him and the invectives he unleashes against everyone are terrifying. But underneath the abusive language we believe that there is love. Musselman does an outstanding job of vilifying his children and wreaking havoc. He may have love in his veins but most of the time we see a monster.
Barry McCluskey/Matchstick Theatre
His wife Mary is the peacemaker of the family but she is not successful
except perhaps in the final scene of the play. We get a bravura performance by
Shelley Thomson as a woman caught in a family maelstrom. Lou Cambell’s Ben is a
sensitive son who wants to leave the family because he is growing up and
perhaps escape the unbearable violence of the family. He has just graduated
from high school. He tries not to express hatred toward his father but wants to
leave and grow up. His father’s violence is focused on him who is seen as a
traitor of the family. Cambell plays the sympathetic, shy youngster superbly.
Bill is in high school but he got Kathy pregnant and is about to marry her. She informs him that she lost the baby and he is not sure he wants to go through with the marriage. Kathy is unsure of his feelings for her and she vacillates between wanting to go on with the wedding and calling it quits. We are not sure about their relationship but we are certain about the acting ability of Vigneault and Weisbrot.
Minnie comes flying into the Mercer home with a faux fur coat and new boyfriend, Harold the Formaldehyde Kid. Jacob calls her a slut in one of his rages and she may well be with her newfound wealth from her deceased husband. Fine work by Kalayil.
The set by Scenic Designer Wesly Babcock shows an ordinary kitchen and living room which indices a working class 1950’s house. Director Jake Planinc marshals the emotional violence of the dysfunctional family as well as the underlying love and keeps us in thrall to the final lyrical denouement. This is realist theatre of the highest order and one wonders why the work of French has been shoved under the carpet after being so popular.
We want more.
Leaving Home by David French continues until June 22, 2025, at the Coal Mone Theatre
in a production by Matchstick Theatre at 2076 Danforth Ave. Toronto, (northwest
corner of Woodbine and Danforth). www.coalminetheatre.com/
James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press
No comments:
Post a Comment