Tackling the migrant crisis in Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story is a celebrated Canadian musical that recently won seven Theatre Nova Scotia Robert Merritt awards.

Last month it opened off-Broadway — to positive reviews — at New York City's 2b Theatre Company.

It will soon make a return to Canada at Edmonton's Citadel Theatre in May.

Old Stock tells the story of two young Jewish refugees — Chaim and Chaya — who flee Romania and meet as asylum seekers in Halifax in 1908.

It is based on the lived experience of Hannah Moscovitch's great-grandparents. She is a Canadian playwright and one of the play's co-creators, alongside Canadian singer-songwriter and actor Ben Caplan.

They both spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury.

Brent Bambury: Ben, you play the role of 'The Wanderer'. Who is 'The Wanderer'?

Ben Caplan: 'The Wanderer' is sort of a larger than life, godly, mischievous narrative structure, offering kind of a character who cavorts with the audience and interferes in subtle ways with the actors onstage and acts as a sort of musical MC for the night.

Brent Bambury: Hannah, from the neck up, how hairy is Ben?

Hannah Moscovitch: So hairy. So much beard. Maximum beard. 

Ben: I just mostly don't like getting haircuts.

Hannah: He's like a hipster Rabbi.

Hannah, this story is based on your great grandparents who came to Canada and met here more than 100 years ago. What inspired you to write and tell their story now?

Hannah: A number of things that all happened at the same time. There were photographs of Alan Kurdi in the news — a dead child on the beach in Turkey and part of the Syrian refugee crisis. And at the same time I had just had a son, Elijah. He was eight weeks old and we were looking for things to do with a bunch of relatives, and we went to Pier 21, the entry point of many Canadians who came by boat into Canada as refugees and immigrants. And while we were there, we just started looking up records.

This is a story that's been happening over and over and over again.- Ben Caplan

And then we found them: my great grandmother Chaya Yankovich and the day she came in and the boat she came in on. And we found Chaim Moscovitch, my great grandfather and his boat and the day he came in. And we realised that where we were standing is where my family would have stood when they came into Canada. In fact, this spot was the difference between life and death because any family that stayed in Romania were wiped out in the pogroms. So all of that cohered in our minds and led to creating this project based on my family story.

The title is also borrowed from a comment made by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Ben, what can you tell us about the title of Old Stock? Where does that come from?

Ben: It was a phrase that, I think, shook myself and Hannah and our co-creator Christian Barry, as well as many other Canadians. This process of 'othering' — us and them. There's the old stock and the new stock. It made me realize that I would have to have a very short view of history, and a very naive identity, to think that I could be included in this idea of old stock. And I didn't think that Harper was trying to exclude myself or the Jewish community. But 100 years ago, my great grandparents coming into Canada were not old stock Canadians.

And to take this view that now you're old stock and these people are 'other', these people are dangerous — to me that was just so troubling. And so let's go back a hundred years to look at people who are now members of Canadian society, but were themselves being 'othered'.

Hannah, your great grandparents started what went on to become a very big and established Canadian family — when you think about who they were then, and who you are now, what do you make of all of that?

Hannah: Yeah, I mean it was the turn of the screw, right? It could have gone the other way. They could have ended up dead on a beach. I mean anything was possible given what the circumstances were in that particular moment in history when Jews were fleeing Eastern Europe in droves. And so yeah, my story is that my family landed in Canada. But if you think about it, we were a hair's breadth away from having disappeared.

Ben: We used the specific of this narrative to try to get at the universal. This is a story that's been happening over and over and over again. It's not just the Jews, or the Muslims coming in through the Syrian refugee crisis. It's the Vietnamese boat people and it's all of these other waves that have come to Canada and found safe harbour. This show, for me, is an opportunity to examine that and to think about that — and also to humanize the individuals who are arriving.

Hannah, what would Chaim and Chaya say today if they could see the representation of themselves on stage? Do you imagine that?

Hannah: They would be shocked by my fictionalization of them! 

Why?

Hannah: They're fairly funny and combative. They have dark senses of humour. They fight and they're nasty and complex and human. And sexy, they're super sexy and romantic with each other. There's a lot going on between these two people.

This show has a lot of roots in Klezmer music and Yiddish theatre. And both of those forms have a long history in Canada and the United States. Ben, how did you know that you could use these tools to tell these stories to a contemporary audience?

Ben: These are tools that I've been working on in my own craft as a singer-songwriter for almost a decade now. I typically write songs with a sort of folk singer-songwriter kind of approach and infuse it with these sort of Yiddish, Klezmer, Eastern European, Balkan kinds of flavours. And so this project was a great opportunity for me to introduce a bit of a songwriterly approach to writing that kind of music.

One reviewer wrote that you looked like a rabbinical Deadhead and that you growl like a Yiddish Tom Waits... 

Ben: Yeah, and I grew up listening to the Grateful Dead and then I discovered Tom Waits and then I discovered Yiddish music as I got older — so they're all strong flavours in my own musical upbringing. 

As you mentioned, there are migration crises happening all over the world. There's a crisis in Central America, in the Middle East, in sub-Saharan Africa. And this week in Israel, there is this deal to find asylum for African migrants which fell apart. Do you think there's a message in this play for Israelis and for people who support Israel? 

Ben: I think the core message of the show is that we're all human beings first. Geopolitics aside, it's important to try to see people as people. My goal as an artist is to try to imbue a sense of our shared humanity. When that is the starting point, I think it makes dialogue easier.

Hannah do you imagine taking this play to Israel?

Hannah: Sure. For sure there are particular countries that, in particular, are dealing with the refugee crisis right now, and that might relate really personally and specifically to what we're talking about. I think Israel is one of them.

You're in New York City, which is the theater capital of North America. But it's also the entry point for millions of refugees and immigrants and Jews going back more than a century. Given the political heat around immigration issues in the United States, do you think that Old Stock would be as welcome in other parts of America as it has been in New York City?

Hannah: I think it would be most interesting to take the piece to places where it was the least welcome. 

Ben: I'm hopeful that we'll have the opportunity to play this show for audiences that are not ready to be on-side with us. You know, I enjoy being a provocateur -- and hopefully we'll get the chance to provoke some people.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. To hear the full interview, download our podcast or click the Listen button at the top of this page.