A play about a J’can family premières at the Stratford Festival

TORONTO:

A play set at the time a family is about to celebrate Jamaica’s Independence in Toronto’s Little Jamaica will have its world première at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, one of the largest theatre stages in Canada.

“ Get That Hope” by playwright Andrea Scott is directed by André Sills and features Savion Roach as Simeon Whyte, Celia Aloma as Rachel Whyte, Conrad Coates as Richard Whyte and Kim Roberts as Margaret Whyte, with Jennifer Villaverde as Millicent Flores. Scott, Aloma, Coates, and Roberts are of Jamaican heritage.

“This is a play about family in all its complexities,” said Sills. “Families are complex things full of history, full of secrets, full of trauma, and you’re stuck with them. The play asks: Can you really share the darkness in your life with your parents or family members?”

Scott, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from London, Ontario, who recently returned to Canada after residing in West Hollywood, California, and working for Disney, is excited about her play being presented at the festival — “the pinnacle in Canadian theatre”. The play, she says, is loosely based on the life of her family, she has fictionalised some aspects.

Scott said Stratford Festival’s artistic director, Antoni Cimolino, read the play several years ago, loved it right away, and wanted it presented there.

Referencing her parallel, she recalls seeing American playwright Eugene O’Neill’s “ Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 2018. The play features one day in the life of a dysfunctional family.

“I was watching the play and thought, we don’t have anything like this in Canada. We don’t have a play about black families who are not just jokes and making everybody laugh. We want to see everything that goes on in their life but see that they still love one another even if they drive each other crazy.”

CHALLENGING RELATIONSHIPS

Her vow to never write about herself or her family soon changed when she tried to explain to persons about her two brothers — including one who is her father’s son, but not her mother’s, and who came from Jamaica to live with her family when she was four years old.

People would ask what it was like for her brother.

Initially, she assumed that everything was fine, but later realised that her mother had had a problem with having to raise somebody else’s child, but did not have a choice in the matter.

Her brother shared too that he never felt like he was a part of the family. “It just made me feel so sad,” she said of the revelation she got in her adult years.

“And that’s how I started to write the play except in this play the person who feels like an outsider is the daughter. I just used my own experience as the only daughter who is expected to do everything and take care of everything. And be the caretaker and be the one who can offer up money when people need money or help people out when they need help. You get taken for granted, daughters get taken for granted.”

The play, she says, is a fusion of the two issues.

“I have a lot of West Indian friends, and a lot of West Indian daughters who have challenging relationships with their fathers and challenging relationships with their mothers, and how that manifest.”

Unfortunately, her father has dementia and is in a long-term care facility so he will not be able to see the play.

“Your family gets on your nerves but when you start to realise that you won’t have them for very long, you start to appreciate the time that you have. We think we have all the time in the world. No, we don’t.”

PART OF HISTORY

Conrad Coates who plays Richard, the father, is returning to the Stratford Festival after a 27-year absence. A prolific actor in theatre, film and television, and director, as the patriarch of the family, he contends with issues discovered by the household and the audience at the same time.

Coates shared that having done many Shakespeare plays at Stratford, “ Get That Hope” appealed to him because he would be acting in a Jamaican play and speaking Patois. “I’ve never experienced that before in my career,” said Coates.

He said it provides a glimpse into the life of a West Indian family in various stages of chaos and joy.

“We don’t see those stories; we don’t see those plays. It’s a new play. It’s a real shot at doing something different. It’s a part of history and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Kim Roberts makes her Stratford début as the family’s matriarch who like most West Indian women has a lot to say about many things. “She’s very strong but she’s also got her own weaknesses,” said Roberts of Margaret.

With a lengthy career encompassing over 200 stage, film, television and voice credits, Roberts, the daughter of a Jamaican father, said she is embodying all her Jamaican relatives in her voice, accent, mannerism and way of thinking to represent Whyte.

“ Get That Hope” runs from July 21 to September 28 at the Studio Theatre. Its opening night is August 10.