National Arts Centre: Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story a comfortable, aesthetics-led debate between empathy and voyeurism

Canada is built upon a core tenet of otherness; its populace is built largely upon the mosaicked lives of (genocidal) settlers and refugees in search of lives better than the ones they’ve left behind. Old Stock, presented by 2b Theatre (Halifax) in collaboration with the National Arts Centre, explores playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s personal genealogy through a musical lens. Old Stock, directed by Christian Barry,directly asks us if we are able to find some piece of ourselves within its storytelling and within the hardships the onstage refugees must face; we, the audience, become implicated in this eighty-minute exploration of the immigrant experience.

Old Stock is, at times, remarkable in its ability to elicit empathy from its audience, leaning upon a shared and snowy Canadian identity that, through virtue of Canada’s history, can be moulded to include nearly any backstory or journey. However, Old Stock occasionally ventures into a place of pandering, leading us to wonder whether its goal is, truly, for us to ignite the universal, authentic empathy it so ardently preaches. 

Moscovitch’s script falls neatly into her dramatic canon, with telltale sharp dialogue and the uncomfortable ache of interpersonal melancholy. Chaya (Mary Fay Coady) and Chaim (Eric Da Costa) have a natural textual rhythm between them, with a vernacular that provides an effective emotional blueprint for its cast. The storytelling, structure-wise, is simple and effective, and leaves no emotion unexplored in its search for a universally-resonant refugee story.

 And there’s the problem. 

In creating a “universal” love story, Moscovitch’s script encroaches upon cliché, seemingly in order to remain accessible to its audience. Chaya’s Romanian stoicism, though beautifully presented by Coady, serves as a layer of otherness that doesn’t quite work; it assumes an Eastern European stereotype and affirms it, rather than working to dismantle it. We get precious few glimpses into Chaya’s personality outside of her marriage (her love for sugar in her tea is a nice touch, though, and one that effectively appears throughout the story), and what we do learn of Chaya we learn only through virtue of Chaim being present to coax out a memory or a joke.  

Old Stock’s hook is in its musical components, excellently presented by singer-songwriter Ben Caplan as The Wanderer. The lyrics are tight, and the largely-Phrygian orchestrations appropriately fall in line with the characters’ Jewish faith. Caplan serves as our narrator and our liaison between modern Canadian comfort and storeyed, imported hardship, offering a lively energy that contrasts with the narrative unfolding just beyond his reach. The Wanderer’s dramaturgical purpose as a character is somewhat blurred, however; is he God? Is he what’s left of Chaya’s former life? Is he a nearer generation to us, a stowaway on the ship to Canada, a minstrel, a storyteller, a busker? The Wanderer’s presence onstage is not unwelcome, but presents perhaps more questions than it answers. 

 Coady as Chaya and Da Costa as Chaim are an excellent pair, offering both onstage chemistry and lovely instrumental skills on violin and woodwinds, respectively. Their time in the band spatially separates them from one another, subtly pointing out how the very act of storytelling serves to dissect and disintegrate the fragments of the story itself. Da Costa is, on the whole, incredibly endearing, from his first pass at Chaya to his embrace of the “new dad” trope, while Coady’s precision results in well-timed, effective comedic moments. While Coady and Da Costa are, yes, navigating stereotype, they perpetuate the idea that archetypes transcend culture. The concept of a family unit is one so strong is breaks the barriers set by an imposed accent or a high-energy song; Coady and Da Costa’s performances offer the gateway into the empathy Old Stock demands, and are nearly enough on their own to navigate that empathy themselves, without needing narration or external guidance.

Christian Barry’s direction is simple and efficient, provoking the right reactions at the right times. Old Stock, being a touring production with a commendable history of development and progress, feels confident in the product it’s presenting. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but Old Stock seems to have grown comfortable with the story it tells and the way in which it tells it, with little room for spontaneity or play. Immigration is an uncomfortable topic, and how we as a society think about refugees is constantly shifting within the current, tumultuous political climate. Old Stock has grown comfortable in its world, and would perhaps benefit from further experimentation in future remounts.

 Louisa Adamson and Christian Barry’s set and lighting are of top quality, providing a functional playground for Caplan as he navigates his space. Jordan Palmer, Graham Scott, Christian Barry, and Ben Caplan’s sound design is equally excellent, soundtracking Old Stock’s world in a way that feels both ritualistic and dreamy, never once letting us forget that what we are watching has its footing in the true events and customs that make up Moscovitch’s family history.

 Old Stock is somewhat difficult to assess; its production standards are well up to that of the National Arts Centre, its performances are superb, and Moscovitch offers more of what we already know her to do rather well. Where Old Stock falters is in its expectations of its audience, spoon-feeding its evident morals to a public that is already capable of inferring and applying them itself. We as a culture have a long way to go in terms of how we treat newcomers to the ever-growing Canada, but the arts-inclined audience of Old Stock has a capacity for empathy that this show, somewhat redundantly, feels a need to reiterate. Moscovitch’s rich family history surely does not need to be narrowed into tropes, and is more than worthy of further exploration in future projects and remounts. 

Old Stock runs at the National Arts Centre until October 27, 2019 in the Babs Asper Theatre.