The Citizen, 2003-06-25, Page 32BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2003. PAGE 7.
David French’s classic Leaving Home touches people
With over 300 productions under
its belt, David French’s semi-
autobiographical play Leaving
Home is coming to Blyth in the
classic Canadian slot.
French’s work is critically-
acclaimed and wildly popular, even
having his play The Seagull
performed on Broadway with well-
known actors such as Jon Voight,
Laura Linney, Ethan Hawke, and
recent Academy Award winner Chris
Cooper.
French, who was bom in Coley’s
Point, Nfld., 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.
During the 2002/2003 school
terms, French was the writer-in-
residence for the University of
Western Ontario in London. He was
at the school every Tuesday and
students would have to submit a
piece of writing (story, poem, play)
every week that he would critique.
French valued the experience and
By Sarah Mann
Citizen staff
David French
enjoyed meeting young writers.
“It was the old story about the
teacher learning more than the
pupils. I had to clarify in my own
head what it was I did.”
Leaving Home is the story of the
Mercers, a family from
Newfoundland who are leaving the
base
on
of my
but if
i life
doesn’t work then I bring in fiction.”
The elements of his own life
French said he incorporated were the
conflicts between his father and
himself and the dislocations of an
immigrant family.
French said people tell him all the
“Rock” for a
new life in
Toronto. When
their children
are ready to
leave the nest,
Jacob and Mary
Mercer are
faced with new
challenges.
Leaving
Home is based
on French’s
own family with ' interesting characters in Canadian
a lot of
moments of his
own life but
with fiction as
well.
“I
stories
elements <
own life
my own
time about how much they can
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.”
French described the character of
Jacob Mercer as being like a prickly
diamond.
“There are so many sides to him,
that’s the diamond part, but he is
prickly too ... he is one of the most
McIntosh plays strong-willed pirate
has
The
first
Continued from page 5
image comes to mind when she
thinks about Hippie'. “I see a big,
gnarly, old, screwed up, scarred tree
with a woman at the bottom
embracing it. It symbolizes nature
witnessing these people not
knowing what to do and how they
. embraced it at the end.”
Also this year, McIntosh
embraced the role of Kate in
Perilous Pirate’s Daughter.
McIntosh was only in her
week of rehearsals when we spoke
so she was still getting to know
Kate.
“I do know that she is extremely
strong-willed and she adores her
father to the point of fault. Her love
blinds her and it leads to a
confrontation.”
As a woman, Kate is treated as a
second-class citizen, plus she was
surrounded by brothers and “it was
not about the right to be equal.”
Kate is also 28 years old and not
married. Because of the standards of
the time, her father wants her to
meet a husband.
Kate is also an advocate of
freedom for the Canadian people as
well as a lover of poetry, “especially
Byron”.
I asked McIntosh to describe Kate
in one word and her reply was
“passionate.” About a week after the
interview we ran into each other on
the street and she told me she had
been thinking about the question and
would like to change her answer to
“single-minded.”
The role of Kate required
McIntosh to research and prepare.
She took singing lessons as last
year in The Outdoor Donnelly’s she
sung a specific style for outdoor
theatre. She’s now in the process of
developing a theatre-style sound.
McIntosh also read the book The
Embroidered Tent, “the story of five
women who came to the country and
forged their own way.”
McIntosh also studied 1837
history, what it was like to travel
down the St. Lawrence, and the
popular writers of the time.
“One thing I would like to do but
haven’t gotten around to doing yet is
to ride on a boat.”
According to McIntosh, “research
is the key to open the window
imagination and let moments
originality appear.”
McIntosh likes Kate’s passion and
her wit the most.
“What I have in common with
Kate is when passion is so strong
you begin to lose your peripheral
[vision] and that can be a great flaw.
Because of this, I’ve fallen on my
face and hurt people.”
As this season’s opener, McIntosh
says the audience can expect, “a
hilarious musical comedy that will
also make them cry their guts out.
They can also expect an amazing
cast with a real ensemble feeling.
The audience will be rewarded with
a fun, sing-along, father-daughter
story with a lot of heart.”
of
of
literature.
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 many people think
Leaving Home is part of a trilogy,
French says it is actually one of five
in a series.
The confusing part, however, is
that the plays weren’t written in
chronological order.
In order of chronology the series
begins with Soldier’s Heart. Next
comes Salt-Water Moon, 1949,
Leaving Home, with the last being
Of the Fields, Lately. The plays
cover 50 years and four or five
generations.
produced the
May at the
everywhere,”
Salt-Water Moon was written 11
years after Of the Fields, Lately
because it was then that he felt
compelled to write it.
“It’s like being pregnant. You just
wait and when the thing is inside of
you, you have to get it out.”
Written in the summer of 1971 at
a rented cottage in P.E.I., Leaving
Home took French only three weeks
to complete but he spent a year re
writing it.
The play was
following year in
Tarragon Theatre.
“It’s been done
French said speaking about the fact
there have been over 300
productions of it. The published play
has sold over 100,000 copies.
Although there are already five
Mercer plays, French says the family
is far from gone.
“I had no idea there would be this
many plays. And there will be at
least one, maybe two, more.”
French said the audience can
“expect that it will be done well.
That’s what will happen in Blyth
because they have a good cast and a
good director.”
The audience can also expect to
“have that feeling of identification,
to laugh their socks off, and to
become terribly moved.”
Leaving Home opens on July 3
and runs until August 9.
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