The year 1939 is best remembered in history for the outbreak of World War II in September. In Canada, the spring brought a "first": the first-ever tour of the country by a reigning monarch, King George VI. In a practical sense, it was the royal tour that triggered the events which form the story line of the play 1939, now appearing in its world premiere engagement in the Studio Theatre at the Stratford Festival.
The real story of the play, though, begins far earlier with the establishment of the first "residential schools" for native children by Canada in the 1800s.
The script, commissioned by Stratford, was co-written by Jani Lauzon (who also directed the performance) and Kaitlyn Riordan. Lauzon's "Director's Notes" in the programme said it best, and I quote her here: "1939... focuses on the incredible resilience, courage, wit, and ingenuity of five incredible students."
If this sounds too heavy for a night out at the theatre, don't be deceived. 1939 is both witty and completely involving: hysterically funny one minute, heart-touching another, intensely painful yet another, and -- in the end and after the end -- deeply thought-provoking.
The story takes place in a Catholic residential school in Northern Ontario. Five students are chosen as being among the best in English language studies to present a performance of Shakespeare's play All's Well That Ends Well when the King and Queen come to visit the school during the tour. Their Welsh teacher, the ageing and unmarried Miss Sian Ap Dafydd, dreams of a gloriously classic production with her students all sounding like Dame Ellen Terry. The students, though, soon develop other ideas of what to do and how to do it -- ideas which have little to do with the King and Queen, or Dame Ellen Terry, but a great deal to do with holding onto, preserving, and nurturing their own identities and cultures.
This play-within-a-play takes on added resonance in this setting since Stratford is also producing All's Well That Ends Well this season. It's not essential to be familiar with the Shakespearean play in order to appreciate 1939, but knowing it does give extra dimension to the experience of watching this one.
Joanna Yu's set design, on the intimate stage of the Studio Theatre, features multiple blackboards with chalk and erasers. As the play unfolds, the five students take turns writing or drawing on the boards during each scene transition, while all members of the company take it in turns to erase the boards as soon as they are marked up. The metaphor of erasing traditional words and designs is clear when it's done by the three settler characters, but less clear and much more thought-provoking when the students erase each other's writings and drawings.
Other than the chalkboards, there are several chairs which are normally laid on their sides in piles on either side of the stage, when not being used. Other props, such as desks and tables, are wheeled on or off as needed.
In what is very much an ensemble piece, the actors portraying the five students all have key moments and significant scenes in the show. Richard Comeau, Wahsonti:io Kirby, Kathleen MacLean, Tara Sky, and John Wamsley each achieved a depth and strength in portrayal that allowed all of the moments, from comical to dramatically tense, to emerge in the most natural way. Quite a challenge in a script that often allows only a few words to create a moment or establish a mood.
All five also excelled in creating the Shakespearean atmosphere with the short excerpts from All's Well that emerged at the end of the play. One of the most powerful scenes for me came when Jean Delorme (played by Wamsley), as a Métis the perennial outsider of the group, used Parolles' wonderful speech of renunciation from Shakespeare's play to tell his fellows how he felt about the treatment he received from them.
Also powerful was the moment when the five students, one by one, discarded the fake Hollywoodish "Indian" costumes and props which had been wished on them by the church community. From that point on, the power and truth of the entire performance really took wing, culminating in the circle where the five broke out into a traditional song -- apparently spontaneously.
Sarah Dodd as Miss Ap Dafydd created a fascinating character, strongly and smugly colonial, yet often seeming just on the verge of breaking out of that shell to a true appreciation of the lives of her students.
Mike Shara drew plenty of laughs as Father Callum Wilson, creating a believable figure as the priest who can appreciate the importance or value of nothing but the church -- and the hockey team. Shara and Dodd made an excellent comic team in the multiple scenes where they struck sparks off each other.
Jacklyn Francis was similarly impenetrable as the news reporter, Madge Macbeth, determined to find only what she wanted to find and see only what she wanted to see.
These three settler characters all veered close to the edge of caricature, but each also had moments of human vulnerability that saved them from tipping over that edge.
The greatest impact of 1939, for me, was the way that the five student characters put human faces on a narrative of inhumanity and indignity which is alls too easily turned into a faceless parade of numbers. This play explored the hundreds of subtle little ways in which the residential "school" experience undermined and devalued the humanity of the inmates -- and then went on, in a powerful affirmation of the human spirit, to show us how each of the five found their own ways to turn the whole terrible experience to their own use and advantage.
Out of all the plays I have seen at Stratford this year, this is the one I would call a must-see. 1939 continues on stage until October 29 in the Studio Theatre at Stratford.
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