Leaving Home is a 1972 play by David French set in Toronto in the 1950s and centring on a Newfoundland family that migrated to Toronto at the end of the war.  It originally played at Tarragon Theatre and it’s now playing at Coal Mine Theatre in a production by Halifax’ Matchstick Theatre.

The plot concerns two transplanted Newfoundland families; one Protestant, one Catholic.  The Protestant Mercers consist of the patriarch Jacob; a bullying construction worker rather lost in th modern world who picks fights with everyone for no reason, drinks and displays an attitude to Catholicism inherited from his Orange Lodge grandfather.  He has two university bound sons; Billy and Ben, who he wishes were as dim as him, but they aren’t, and a long suffering wife Mary.

The complication is that young Billy has got Catholic Kathy Jackson pregnant and has decided to convert to Catholicism and marry her.  His older brother Ben plans to leave home and move in with them.  Jacob’s patriarchal realm is in danger of collapse.  The tense meal before the wedding rehearsal is interrupted by the arrival of Kathy’s mother Minnie; all fur coat and no knickers it seems, and her funeral parlour embalmer boyfriend Harold (met while embalming her late husband) whose main claim to fame is being extremely well hung.  And to complicate matters Jacob and Minnie were once an item “back home”

The action is a long series of rows provoked by Jacob that Mary tries to smooth over punctuated by some grotesque humour involving Minnie and Harold.  To be fair some of it is genuinely funny in a slightly appalling way.  But Kathy has a miscarriage and there’s doubt as to whether the marriage will go ahead.  But it does and Ben succeeds in moving out after a particularly violent confrontation with his father.  Jacob and Mary are left to make whatever they can of what’s left of their life.  I wouldn’t rate their chances.

I can see why it was a significant success when it first appeared.  First of all, it’s a major Canadian play; rather less common then than now.  It also operates in the same space as the British “kitchen sink” dramatists of a slightly earlier period.  It breaks taboos.  It deals with subjects that, until recently, were unmentionable.  There’s uncontrolled anger, raw emotion and profanity.  This is not Shakespeare in “doublet and hose”.

But how well does it age?  Not especially well in my opinion.  It comes across as Newfie Tennessee Williams without the poetry or the psychological depth.  To be fair it’s probably aged as well as Look Back in Anger but that’s faint praise.  The “shocking” elements are everyday fare on Toronto stages now and the frustrated patriarch trope is unlikely to appeal to anyone other than perhaps Jordan Peterson.  I suppose it still serves as a warning of the evils of toxic masculinity though I doubt that was French’s intention.

The Matchstick production  though; directed by Jake Planinc, is rather good and probably makes as strong a case for the play as one could hope for.  It’s played in the round with the audience surrounding a very 1950s living room/dining room/kitchen space designed with considerable attention to detail.  The acting is strong.  Andrew Musselman, as Jacob, oozes pent up rage and violence and portrays his characters bizarre mood swings convincingly.  There’s a fine, restrained performance by Lou Campbell as Ben.  I’d guess most intellectual kids who grew up in the 50s/60s/70s would see something of themselves in this performance.  Shelley Thompson as Mary is the glue that holds the show, as well as her family, together.  It’s a fine portrayal of an effective matriarch in a patriarchal world.  Most of the comedy comes from Sharleen Kalayil as  Minnie who is hilariously inappropriate.  The young couple; Abby Weisbrot as Kathy and Sam Vigneault as Bill don’t have as much meat to get their teeth into but they are quietly effective.  Sébastien Labelle makes the most of the non-speaking part of the stiff (in every sense) Harold.

David French intended Leaving Home as a universal play about the enduring, if problematic, nature of inter-generational love in families.  To me it feels too rooted in time and placxe to achieve that but it is interesting as a landmark in Canadian theatre.

Leaving Home runs at Coal Mine Theatre until June 22nd.

Photo credit: Barry McCluskey