Play ‘Woods are Dark and Deep’ explores immigrant internment during the war
Credit to Author: Canadian Immigrant| Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 05:14:46 +0000
Mladen Obradović, a Montenegrin-Canadian immigrant theatre artist, is presenting a new play at Factory Theatre in Toronto, March 21-27, 2019, that talks about the identity of an immigrant in this country.
Written by Obradović and directed by Sandra Cardinal, The Woods are Dark and Deep is about Serbian and Ukrainian immigrants detained in a Canadian Internment camp during the First World War.
The play, produced by Pulse Theatre, is based on the historical fact that during the war, immigrants who were living in Canada, but who came from countries that Canada was in war with, ended up interned. Italians, Ukrainians, Croats, Serbs, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Turks — more than 8,500 people were kept in camps and receiving stations. They were used as a labour force to clear forests, create roads, national parks and villages.
Obradović’s story follows three Serbian men, and a Ukrainian family, parents with two children. All of these characters came to Canada to work and earn a better life for themselves and their families, but through no fault of their own ended up locked up and forced to do manual labour for several years.
This show gives us a glimpse into the history of immigrants in our country and the ordeals that they had to go through to integrate into the fabric of modern Canadian society.
“We are very proud to invite you to the premiere of our new play The Woods are Deep and Dark,” says Obradović. But when he was hanging a poster of his upcoming play on the bulletin board in his residential building in Toronto, he was shocked to find it torn down.
“One of the tenants complained that the message on it was offensive to them. This is just one of the examples of immigrant stories being suppressed, shunned, ignored by our public. This kind of a reaction is not something new. People being ashamed of the word ‘immigrant,’ people being ashamed of being immigrants or of their ancestors being immigrants, people being convinced that any connection with their immigration past is disgraceful, or an insult to Canada,” he says.
But that is precisely what our play talks about — the identity of an immigrant in this country. Are we citizens? Are we accepted? Should we be accepted as equals? Should our rights be the same? How did that work out during the war?”
This play is based on a year of research, and its events and places are real, but its characters are fictionalized.
Get tickets for the show at Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst St, Toronto) at www.pulsetheatre.com.