drama

There was drama in Toronto tonite: drama as in theatre.

This afternoon, Mum and I went and had our harcut at a small salon around the corner from my place, and the hairdresser (who was hilarious - didn't stop talking the entire time and yes I know what that sounds like coming from  me - hehe) was rushing off to watcher her 12 year old daughter who was in a school play this evening. She was so clearly proud of her daughter, gently complaining of the drama of it all in order to have a chance to talk about her.

Then this evening, Mum and I went to a play at the Factory Theatre - it was called Oil and Water and was absolutely amazing. The play centred on the story of an African American man from Georgia who was in the navy during WWII and washed ashore covered in oil when the ship he was in capsized off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada. The story was woven alongside a later moment in the same man's life when his daughter was going through the torturous process of 'integrating' a school in Boston: white students and adults tormented the black kids who went to the school, and she became fearful of what was going to happen. Meanwhile, all through the play, a key character was his great-grandmother who was enslaved and who spoke to him through direct interations and through suggestion. Also throughout the play, the actors sang amazing amazing a capella music - really quite incredible - and somehow they did it in a way that added to the play rather than just sounding like something they could have played on CD instead. The play was ultimately about race, and the thickness of the membrane between two kinds of difference, and the opportunity people have to think about the racial dynamics of 'home' when far, far away.

It was such a pleasure to go to the play with Mum - she and Dad are both going on a 'hot date' of some sort with me this week... Mum loves plays, and Dad loves movies... so on Friday Dad and I are going to check out a film in the 'Hot Docs' documentary film festival held in Toronto each year.

Another kind of drama today, of a slightly quieter kind... my book arrived! It's real. Really real. I mean, I knew it was real... but now it's real.