Living in a brand new world

BAILA LAZARUS

What would you do if you went to look for a long-lost sibling in Canada and were told to forget about it; that they were better off without you? Would you continue looking or would you put your past behind you and try to move on?

Well, if you were a young boy like Alistair “Jackie” Jackman, shipped from Great Britain to live a new and strange life in Canada, you might believe what was told to you, especially if you had just gotten out of jail. You might change your last name to hide your past and bury it so no one will uncover the pain.

This is Homechild, a play that relates, somewhat convolutedly, the story of a brother and sister – Jackie and Katie – who were given up for adoption when they were young children in Scotland. They became “home children,” who were given passage to Canada to become permanent members of families here.

Between 1869 and the early 1930s, more than 100,000 children were sent to Canada from Great Britain during the child emigration movement.

In the play, Jackie is sent first and the two siblings are separated after he leaves. When his sister arrives a year later, he tries to find her, but meets resistance and frustration and finally gives up.

The play takes place in 1999, when Jackie (played by Duncan Fraser) is now elderly, with his own family, living on a farm in rural Ontario. He hasn’t told anyone about his past and has even changed his name to hide it.

When his daughter Lorna (Jillian Fargey) comes to visit from Toronto, the truth comes out. Jackie (who now only calls himself Alistair) has a stroke. When Lorna visits him in the hospital, he reveals that he has a sister and asks Lorna to find her. Eventually, Lorna is successful, and the play concludes soon after the reunion.

All in all, this should make for an interesting portrayal of the difficult story of forging a new life in a new land – something to which many in the Jewish community can relate. But something was not sitting well in the state of Muskoka.

As we were walking up the theatre aisle after the lights came up, my guest turned to me and said, “I don’t know exactly, but something’s missing.”

That was pretty much all she said, but I got her point. There was an overall feeling about this play of something being incomplete.

Nonetheless, I did enjoy the play. There were so many family scenarios with bickering and laughing, teasing and stressing that I could relate to it very well, but there were often times I was confused by the reactions of the characters.

While not all plays can be totally summarized according to writing, directing and acting, when there’s something that feels off, these are the first places to look; and it felt like something was peculiar in each.

First, there was definitely information missing. When Lorna comes to visit her father, there’s an immediate tension, as though they’ve been fighting for years, but it’s unclear as to what that’s all about. I took a large guess and surmised it had something to do with Lorna’s marriage falling apart. I thought that Alistair was always bitter about his mother giving her children up for adoption, so he was angry with Lorna for not keeping her own marriage together.

There’s also the uncomfortable and unexplained uneasiness between Lorna and her brother, Ewen, who’s still living at the house, taking care of his father.

Then there are odd reactions to scenarios that I can only attribute to misdirection. For example, when Alistair and Katie first meet, Alistair won’t have anything to do with her. He even claims at one point that she’s not who she claims to be. That’s odd enough, but as they start to get along and laugh, Lorna, who worked so hard to get them together, is standing by looking angry and miserable. It doesn’t track with what’s going on.

Overall, I would give this play a three out of five. It opened up for discussion an interesting and little-known aspect of Canadian history, with some true-to-life family interactions that had me thinking about my own family relationships. But overall the writing, directing and acting didn’t rate highest marks.

Homechild, directed by Jane Heyman, runs at the Arts Club Stanley Theatre until April 12. For tickets, call 604-687-1644 or visit www.artsclub.com.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.

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