About the Play:

Soldier's Heart is a full-length drama by David French. The play dramatizes the reconciliation of a father and son who have been unable to connect in the years following the First World War. This is the fifth of his award-winning dramatic cycle about the Mercer family, which has become a defining part of Canada's theatrical history. Set in Toronto, the first play, Leaving Home, introduced the family saga's key figure, Jacob Mercer, who appears in all of the plays. Also in this series are Of the Fields, Lately; Salt-Water Moon; and 1949, which deals with this expatriate family's reaction to Newfoundland's entry into confederation.

Soldier's Heart is the prequel to Leaving Home; Of the Fields, Lately; Salt-Water Moon; and 1949. Set in a Newfoundland back in 1924, the play looks back in time at the thoroughly alienated sixteen-year-old Jacob Mercer, standing on a railway platform, his suitcase and one-way ticket away from home in hand. His father Esau, a veteran of the First World War, rushes to the station in a last-ditch effort to persuade his son not to leave. Unable to speak of what had happened in the Great War since his return, Esau begins, in halting and tentative language to tell of his comrades and his brother, their training in Scotland, the agony of Gallipoli, and finally the formative events at the battle of the Somme at Beaumont Hamel. At first defensive in response to his son's probing and impatient questioning, Esau's answers evolve into stories of pride, foolishness, anger, desperation, and finally mindless terror, leaving only the image of a man driven by the blind animal instinct to survive. It is this devastating and unsparing account of all that is in a soldier's heart, that finally brings father and son back together. Soldier's Heart is the fifth part of The Mercer Family play cycle..

Soldier's Heart premiered in 2001 at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. It's been a popular and a favourite play for regional and community theatre productions ever since.

Cast: 3 male

What people say:

"A transplanted Newfoundlander, French never strayed far from the rich vein of family lore and tradition he mined to create these classics, including Leaving Home and Of the Fields, Lately. [In The Mercer Family Play Cycle] David French created the Canadian equivalents of Tennessee Williams's characters with their haunting, visceral, essential take on leaving home, politics, love and the eternal drama of families." — The Book of Lists

David French (1939-2010) was one of Canada's most popular and critically-acclaimed playwrights. He is best remembered for the Mercer family plays, such as Leaving Home, which chronicle the lives of a Newfoundland family with humour and pathos. The Mercer plays have received hundreds of productions across North America, including a Broadway production of Of the Fields, Lately. This quintet of plays has also touched audiences in Europe, South America and Australia. His backstage comedy Jitters has been performed all over the continent, and most of his plays have had successful international runs, including two Broadway productions. In 1989, David French was inducted into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of Honour, and in 2001 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.