This 'diaspora kid' is bringing one of Haiti's most famous plays to a Canadian stage

"I have twenty days to sell a thousand tickets or my directorial debut will flop" Abigail Whitney says, speaking direct to camera in a recent Instagram reel. It's a provocative plea to raise awareness for her new play, The Noose. But while tongue in cheek, the stakes are indeed high for this first-time theatre producer. 

Whitney graduated in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, a period in which live theatre performance became a prohibited public art form. When shows did return, fewer were being produced, audiences were limited and after a year of cancelled performances, theatre schedules were all delayed in a ripple effect that we are just starting to come out of.  Consequently, in an effort to get The Noose made Whitney self-produced the play in association with The Next Stage Festival.

"This play is really my calling card." says Whitney. Originally written in Haitian Creole by Frankétienne, one of Haiti's best-known playwrights, it was translated to English twenty seven years ago, in the same year Whitney was born. But while the play was written in a language she doesn't speak, at a time before she was born, it's clear that this production — which hasn't been performed in English since 1997 — is a unique opportunity to bring this piece to life today, and is especially pertinent at a time when an escalating crisis threatens Haiti and Haitians abroad find themselves subject to nativist rhetoric.

The Noose is about two Haitian migrants who are rooming together in a New York basement apartment in the 1980s and struggling to live the American dream. "Polydor," says Whitney, "is a middle class Haitian intellectual. He is living in exile in New York City. Pyram is a lower class labourer who emigrated to New York in the 80s to pursue the American dream. They're opposites but they mirror one another in many ways."

The Noose is deeply rooted in Haitian dialect, politics and history. And while Whitney was raised primarily by her Haitian mom, she has a complicated relationship with many of the play's themes.

"I've never set foot in Haiti," says Whitney. "It's a really interesting experience learning about my parent's culture as a diaspora kid. Haiti, you know, wasn't the most predominant Caribbean culture in Toronto. So I would jokingly tell my mom that she's like the only Haitian that I knew growing up because I didn't grow up with many Haitians here."

That lack of access to community led to a few challenges in producing this play. As the producer, she needed to find Haitian collaborators to deepen the translation — including her mother who became the play's dramaturge — Haitian actors to perform it and of course funding to bring this Haitian story to a Canadian stage.

Whitney applied for funding for the play in 2021, the same year Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. 

"In my application, I said, there's really no way for Haitians of the diaspora or at least young folks to come together and heal through arts," Whitney recalls. "And I really think this play is that."

The original piece was written in 1978 at the height of the Duvalier regime and unpacks the mental and physical trauma of dealing with layers of oppression in isolation.  In thinking about how best to define the central conflict of the two leads in The Noose, Whitney references Haitian author Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying. In that memoir, Danticat tells the story of forced migration within her own family and questions her uncle's initial desire to stay in Haiti despite its instability at the time. As Whitney remembers, his answer was simple but poignantly 'Exile is not for everyone.'

Healing is an on-going theme in the work Whitney wants to make, and has actively sought out stories that help her better connect with her own ancestral trauma and displacement from both sides of her parents.

"I'm Haitian by my Mom and on my Dad's side, I'm Sudanese. The same year that the war started in Sudan was the year my Dad bought us a ticket to go and a few days before the war broke out," Whitney laments. "So I've never been to Sudan or Haiti. I do hope to go. I'm not sure when."

She remains hopeful that day will come soon, but until then, Whitney will continue to challenge Canadian audiences to join her in seeing beyond the plight of a country, but into the hearts of its people – and with that she might just end up with a thousand visitors accompanying her on this journey.

The Noose can be seen at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre as part of The Toronto Fringe's Next Stage Theatre Festival Oct 17-26.