Serious Immigration Laugh by Playwright Devon Haughton

Toronto playwright Devon Haughton has produced another gem with Me Get Mi Landed II scheduled for a series of ten performances around the Greater Toronto Area, including Toronto, Scarborough, Brampton, Mississauga, Barrie, Oshawa, Hamilton and Ottawa. The play surrounds the life of Ruth (Judy Cox), a hardworking and mild-mannered woman who wanted only love and happiness when she foolishly falls in love with Enos, marries him, and then sponsors him to emigrate from Jamaica to Canada.

Dedicated Haughton fans packed the Jamaican Canadian Center Friday for the start of the series. Having Terri Salmon, a leading Jamaican actress as the star of the production, this Canadian-Jamaican playwright understands his audience and he offers them delightful, memorable lines along with well-known Reggae music and popular spiritual offerings. While the play’s paramount focus is about the status of a Caribbean national to remain in Canada, the literary content travels a delicate route that delves into sultry social conditions, double standards, illicit practices and of course class distinctions among family members. This is simple proof that Caribbean playwrights, film makers, novelists, poets, composers of Calypso, Soca, reggae, Cadance and Zouk music are indeed telling stories of their own people.

Enos arrives in Canada to live with his wife Ruth and her colourful wig-wearing, cantankerous sister Tatti (Salmon). Not too long after, Tatti moves out of the house and what happens subsequently is a comedic display of a litany of lies and deceit. Haughton’s Me Get Mi Landed II picks up from a terrific and successful 2009 production also titled Me Get Mi Landed staged in major Canadian cities. This play captures developments 4 years later when Ruth used her life savings to start a nursing home and a long-time family friend Pu Pam Pam arrives seeking a job. As the production unfolds, the audience sees Tatti trying to return to Canada but she has to jump through some legal immigration hurdles, having lost her landed immigrant status at the airport.

Haughton has cleverly crafted a story around a very serious issue that should normally cause affected individuals to cry but the playwright uses comedy to craftily exhibit the special Caribbean ability to laugh at your own self. Irrespective of how serious a challenge, Caribbean people are blessed with a tendency to identify something funny to evoke laughter. Another special characteristic of the community is lively and spontaneous interaction between audience and actors on stage. Theresa Baker as Coco was a natural for this phenomenon. She received the audience’s unsolicited participation from her first entry on stage shaking her tambourine and singing popular church songs. Coco is a Christian minded housekeeper at Ruth’s nursing home who needs money to save her dying daughter in Jamaica.

Barbabas (Robert Gordon) a personal support worker (psw) at Ruth’s nursing home weaves his conniving ways as he attempts to undermine and possibly take over his employer’s business. But he is stopped by her sister Tatti. Both women caught him snooping and pounce upon him like cobras, preventing the dishonest employee from realizing his sinister objective. As the play progresses we see Ruth battling mental health issues, Tatti fighting to regain her landed immigrant status.

Salmon started out as a dancer at Holy Trinity with Joy Gordon, whom she credits as the first person to discover her artistic talent. During that time, she was successful in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commissions’ Festival of The Performing Arts, earning gold and silver medals. Her stellar performances and ensuing success prompted a scholarship from the late Joyce Campbell to her dance company -- Jamaica Institute of Dance. Undoubtedly her wealth of experiences contributed marvelously to the success of opening night of Me Get Mi Landed Part II here in Toronto.