The Citizen, 2004-06-16, Page 10Mining family history
David French goes back to his birthplace of Coley's Point,
Newfoundland for Salt-water Moon's setting.
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PAGE 10. BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2004.
`Salt-water Moon' shows character's softer side
A totally different side of Jacob
Mercer will be on stage when Salt-
water Moon is performed on the
Festival stage this year.
Last year audiences saw an older,
more bitter version of Jacob
portrayed in Leaving Home, the first
of the series of plays David French
wrote based on his family. While the
play is a classic with over 300
productions worldwide and many
people felt Blyth's was one of the
best productions in years, other
audience members didn't appreciate
the anger and bitterness on stage,
even though it was laced liberally
with laughter.
Festival artistic director Eric
Coates decided to break from his
original plan to produce all the
Mercer plays in the order they were
originally produced, and instead
insert Saltwater Moon, which takes
Jacob back to his days courting
Mary, back in Coley's Point,
Newfoundland, into the 2004
season.
French was born in Coley's Point
and was one of the first inductees
into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of
Honour in 1989. In 2001, French
was named an Officer of the Order
of Canada.
The Mercer family plays'. are
based on French's own family with a
lot of moments of his own life but
with fiction as well.
"I base stories on elements of my
Memories
Anne Mann of Lucknow started
her involvement with the Blyth
Festival in 1979 when she worked in
the box office until her second child
was born in 1983. Although she no
longer works for the Festival, Mann
is still a dedicated fan and said she
attends all the shows, except each
year's returning show.
She said one of her most
memorable events at the Festival was
own life but if my own life doesn't
work then I bring in fiction," he told
The Citizen's Sarah Mann last year.
The elements of his own life
French said he incorporated into
Leaving Home were the conflicts
between his father and himself and
the dislocations of an immigrant
family.
French said people tell him all the
time about how much they can
Relating
John Jarvis, director of Salt-
water Moon says he can relate
to the Mercer family.
when she went on a tour with the
schools to different areas.
Mann said her favourite plays
were Country Hearts written by Ted
Johns and John Roby, This Year Next
Year by Norah Harding, The
Tomorrow Box and Another Season's
Promise.
"I like lighter shows with comedy
and romance. The ones that are more
about life and not too down."
identify with the, character of Jacob
Mercer and his family.
"I was going to write a play about
my family. I had no idea I was going
to write this play about everyone's
family."
That's an element director John
Jarvis finds in the plays. "The story
of the Mercer family feels so
recognizable to me," he writes in his
director's notes. "Not my family
exactly but more the greater human
family. Its members are in constant
flux, battling and colliding headlong
into each other."
French creates his characters
using a variety of sources.
"All characters I create are a part
of David French, part of a real
person, and other people I've noticed
through experience and observation.
That all gets thrown in and out
comes a ,character."
Though m.any people think of
Leaving Home, Saltwater Moon and
Of The Field Lately as part of a
trilogy, they are actually five plays in
a series.
The confusing part, however, is
that the plays weren't written in
chronological order.
In order of chronology of the
family within the series begins with
Soldier's Heart. Next comes Salt-
water Moon, 1949. Leaving Home.
$C1' ,41t
with the last being Of the Fields,
Lately. The plays cover 50 years and
four or five generations.
Salt-water Moon was written II
years after Of the Fields, Lately
because it was then that French felt
compelled to write it.
"It's like being pregnant," he told
Mann. "You just wait and when the
thing is inside of you, you have to
get it out."
It will be hard to recognize the
Jacob and Mary of Leaving Home in
Saltwater Moon. Just 18, Jacob has
come back to Coley's Point from the
mainland.in 1926, seeking the hand
of Mary, only to find he has
competition in the person of Jerome
Mackenzie, a wealthy young man
who can provide Mary with the
stability she wants.
Jarvis, who also directed Leaving
Home, first came to work at the
Festival in 1979 for a Ted Johns
version of The Death of the
Donnellys. Then a young man just
beginning what would become a 25-
year career as a professional actor,
he returned to the Festival stage
many times as an actor before
directing last year.
Of his repeated visits to Blyth,
Jarvis said he has seen the Festival
evolve and grow due to the
confidence of both the theatre family
and the audience they serve.
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