The Toronto Theatre Review: Matchstick Theatre’s Leaving Home
By Ross
“It’s not the end of the world,” we are told within the first few minutes of Leaving Home, but for many in this moving and conflictual play by David French (Of the Fields, Lately), brought to head at Toronto’s Coal Mine Theatre by Nova Scotia’s Matchstick Theatre, it sure feels like its crashing down all around them. Set in 1950s Toronto in the Mercer familial home, the night before their youngest son gets married and the day after the oldest graduates from high school, one would think it would be a big grand day of celebration for this fraught family but because of years of intergenerational conflict and tense relations within, the four members of this Newfoundland family stare at each other as if they are forever trapped inside a boxing ring, just waiting for the bell to ring and for the fight to erupt.
It’s a tense undertaking, where the energy crackles with violence, waiting in the wings and fueled by one too many drinks. Designed in the round, with energetic care by set designer Wesley Babcock (Matchstick’s Footnotes), lighting designer Alison Crosby (Neptune’s The Prom), and sound designer Jordan Palmer (Neptune’s Misery), Leaving Home floats in on a sea of tension and tight brittleness, with a father, Jacob, played combustably by Andrew Musselman (WhyNot’s Prince Hamlet), who seems determined to go to war. Always on the verge of snapping, he stands, inconsistently, looking for a fight with his snide, disruptive comments about manliness and strength towards his two sons, but he’s always searching their eyes for some sort of attachment. But there really is no hope in it, he sees, night after night.
Mary, the mother, played heroically by Shelley Thompson (NA’s TAMARA), looks on, perplexed but keeping busy, forever trying to create a semblance of home for that night’s pre-wedding dinner party. Mary’s anxiety lives just under her skin, vibrating within from knowing all, particularly how her husband might react when they go off to the Catholic Church to talk with the priest who will marry their son to his girlfriend, Kathy, played quietly by Abby Weisbrot (Steday Theatre’s Macbeth). Kathy does not come from a Catholic family, yet, somehow, Mary balances both nervousness and hope together in her overworked arms, floating like a tug boat in a choppy sea that is all too familiar to her. She knows that her husband is both the bully and a proud man, and that his distaste for the Catholic Church goes back generations. She also knows that he always speaks before thinking, with a devil in his eyes forever winking and wailing. She tries with all her might to keep the aggressiveness that is sure to flare up from fully exploding, but it’s a lost cause, and we all know it as the family comes together on this pivotal, powerful night.
There is so much unsaid love that lives in these struggling characters. We see it seep out when no one is looking. Yet, when asked to stand face to face with both his son at his shotgun wedding to a Catholic girl, and his oldest son’s graduation, there is only deep mistrust in their compatibility, with the only response this hard-working, uneducated man can muster is disgust and anger. It’s clear the constant testing of his sons’ manliness is coming from a place of pure discomfort and emotional defensiveness. But as played out on this fateful night, when one son. a religious “turncoat“, is about to leave home with a new teenage bride, and the other, the soft one, is excelling in areas that make father Jacob feel ignorant and worthless, the screetch lid that’s been brewing and cooking under pressure finally has reached its maximum point, and an explosion is sure to follow.
After debuting at the Tarragon Theatre more than fifty years ago, this landmark Canadian play has returned to the Toronto stage direct from a celebrated run at Nova Scotia’s Matchstick Theatre. Fleshing out ideas about family relationships, generational misconceptions, and the complex trauma forged inside immigrant families and changing value systems, the play is a captivating one, but it also is a celebrated one, that has been produced at virtually every regional theatre in the country, a first for a Canadian play.. And as directed with clarity by Jake Planinc (Matchstick’s The Woodcutter), the fault-throwing forces of a family lorded over by a desperate, needy, and scared bully of the largest order is a finger-pointed brawl just waiting to happen. Especially after Kathy’s brazen mother, Minnie, played ferociously by Sharleen Kalayil (Watermark’s Steel Magnolias), shows up with her silent new Lazerus boyfriend, Harold, played true by Sébastien Labelle (Matchstick’s Bone Cage), and pushes buttons every chance she gets.
On the play, Matchstick Artistic Director Jake Planinc comments, “Leaving Home is one of the greatest dramas Canada has ever produced. The play touches on identity, immigration, and unrequited love. David French was a masterful craftsman and storyteller, and his play has a timeless, poetic resonance.” And inside this in-the-round production, the boxing ring of discontent and anger spills out with an edge that keeps us waiting most anxiously for punches to fly. The complex ideas of love and loss fill the air, tearing all their attachments to shreds, even as the impulse comes from that same fear of abandonment and loss of love. These two young boys, played almost too carefully by Lou Campbell (Stages’ PRUDE) as the oldest son, Ben, and Sam Vigeault (Rising Tide’s West Moon) as the soon-to-be-wed Bill, don’t exactly seem to know how to stand up to their brutish father. They have been covered and cared for by their protective mother in a way that made their father feel abandoned by them all, and the sons feel forever silenced. That is until tonight, when Ben’s leaving-home truth slips out, and the shotgun wedding’s ammunition is surprisingly unloaded. It’s all too much for Jacob, who was never good at holding his tongue to begin with, and his destructive nature causes the starting bell to be rung for the next and most likely last round of the Mercer family’s fight to the finish.
It’s hard to know who to stand up for in this complex play, beyond the hurt of Ben and the lost silence of Bill. No one seems to be able to help themselves in this troubled family. They all look to each other for guidance when they should be finding their own way forward. Bill and his soon-to-be wife stare into their future somewhat blankly, like it’s an unemotional abyss, but have a hard time speaking their truth to each other, let alone their family members. And father Jacob fluctuates so wildly from infatuation with his Mary to saying something horribly demeaning to his two sons that it makes it hard to feel sorry for his rupture. He is forever torture-testing them, but in a way, everyone is testing the other around ideas of love, care, and attachment. Dressed impressively by costume designer Kaelen MacDonald (Neptune’s Little Shop of Horrors), Leaving Home resonates in the lost arena of complex family trauma and the hardened ability to speak the words of love without using it as a way to control or punch down. It sizzles with hurt manifesting as anger and disgust, leaving us as worn out by the traumatic disruption as anyone on that well-crafted stage. It’s difficult to feel for these ill-tempered or passive creatures as they hear the bell and jump into the ring for the fight, but it’s also a captivating piece of theatre and Canadian heritage, worthy of its Nova Scotia rendering and disturbing deconstruction.
