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Jacob's Wake
Jacob's Wake
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Author: Michael Cook Publisher: Talonbooks (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 143 Pub. Date: 1975 ISBN-10: 0889220972 ISBN-13: 9780889220973 Cast Size: 2 female, 5 male
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About
the Play:
Jacob's Wake is a full-length drama by Michael Cook.
Painful memories are unleashed at a family gathering in a desolate
Newfoundland coastal community. The Skipper, a former schooner captain is now bed-ridden and guilty. His greed led to the death of his crew along with his favourite son Jacob, during a seal hunt one winter day more than 30 years ago. Fading in and out of
memory and reality, he hears his remaining children and grandchildren
battle for a shred of dignity in a world that has taught them only
bitter lessons of survival.
Jacob's Wake explores the lives of three generations of
Newfoundlanders living in a tiny outport, who are caught between the old ways of the sealers and the fishermen and the new realities of unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness. The storm brewing outside
mirrors the stormy relationships inside the Blackburn home. The aged
patriarch, called only The Skipper, lies dying in an upstairs
bedroom. Along with him is dying the great seafaring tradition of his
people. His already aging son, Winston Blackburn, is a sharp-tongued welfare case who drowns his sorrows in beer and heaps psychological abuse on his wife and sister. He knows that he is nothing and nowhere, the lost generation.
And Winston's three sons are the new world to come: Wayne, a corrupt
politician, Alonzo, a cynical business man, and Brad, a failed
priest. It quickly moves from an apparently realistic family drama as
the storm begins to dominate the stage. The whole play, not merely
the last few moments, is a wake, specifically for Jacob, the lost son
of the title, but more generally for Newfoundland.
Jacob's Wake premiered in 1974 at the Arts and Culture Centre
in St. John's, Newfoundland. This
Canadian classic has been produced across Canada, at the Swedish
National Theatre in Stockholm, and
has been
performed in
college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.
Cast: 2 female, 5 male
What people say:
"A powerful play, deeply
rooted in its regional context, but universal enough to appeal to an
audience anywhere." — Canadian Literature
About the Playwright:
Michael Cook (1933-1994) was a Canadian dramatist,
director, critic, actor, and professor of English at Memorial
University. Born to an Anglo-Irish family in London, England, he
emigrated to Canada in 1966 and rapidly built a reputation in the
1970s as a playwright of Newfoundland life, history and culture –
the most notable of which are Jacob's
Wake and the one-act dramas collected in Tiln
& Other Plays. He was the outstanding
Canadian radio dramatist of his generation writing over fifty plays
for CBC Radio and Television, and a theatre reviewer writing columns
for the St. John's Evening Telegram.
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