Drinking, insults and stunning poetry paint a portrait of two CanLit icons in ‘among men’

David Yee’s “among men,” the first in-person play at Factory Theatre since February 2020, begins with a raunchy exchange between Canadian poets Milton Acorn (Carlos Gonzalez-Vio) and Al Purdy (Ryan Hollyman).

Acorn recalls a dream about a poetry reading that involves oral sex, a Venus fly trap and a young Michael Ondaatje, witnessed by a culture writer for the Toronto Star, who happens to be in the audience.

Set in 1959, “among men,” directed by Nina Lee Aquino, examines Acorn’s and Purdy’s friendship during the early days of the Canadian publishing explosion. Through his characters’ bantering, Yee references other prominent figures of the era, such as poets Irving Layton and Gwendolyn MacEwen — “CanLit’s original freaks and geeks,” as University of Toronto professor Nick Mount collectively named the cohort in his 2017 book “Arrival: The Story of CanLit.”

The foolishness and comedy continue as these two future icons of Canadian literature swill whiskey and cheap wine, smoke and insult each other like inebriated teens facing the end of the world. In between the drinking, there is hammering as the debauched duo build Purdy’s famous A-frame cabin on Roblin Lake in Prince Edward Country, which would later become one of the most iconic buildings in CanLit lore. In the play’s serious scenes, it’s clear both men, psychically wounded in different ways, are outsiders, in constant need of reassurance of their talents. But above all, there is stunning poetry.

In fact, Yee’s inspiration came from a short Purdy poem called “House Guest,” thought to be about Acorn, in which the narrator describes how he and his guest argued for two months over socialism, poetry, the Toronto Maple Leafs and domestic chores such as making coffee, as the new house “built with salvaged old lumber/bent a little in the wind and dreamt of the trees it came from.”

“It was a very strange, very fraught, delicate relationship. I always thought the poem was such a stunning portrayal of these two guys,” Yee said in an interview. “It stuck in my head. And when things get stuck in my head, I tend to write a plan to set them free.”

Besides his work as an award-winning playwright and actor, Yee is the co-founding artistic director of fu-GEN Theatre Company, which focuses on Asian Canadian theatre. His office sits across from Allan Gardens, where Acorn — long declared Canada’s unofficial “people’s poet” — was fined in 1962 for reading poetry to a crowd gathered at the foot of the park’s Robbie Burns statue, breaking a bylaw that prohibited free speech in a park without permits.

“I think he was silently whispering to me,” said Yee.

While writing “among men,” Yee was careful to remain true to all he read and researched about the poets’ lives. He particularly loves Purdy’s collected letters, which illuminate his cracking humour. “Their hearts were open,” Yee said. “They weren’t anti-beauty, but they would have stood greatly opposed to easy sentimentality.”

The play’s set is a stunning model of Purdy’s A-frame, which he began building in 1957 with his wife, Eurithe, and her father. At the centre is a wood-burning stove, which the two poets attempt to keep stoked, occasionally with comedic results. A typewriter sits on a cluttered table, surrounded by many bottles and discarded papers.

“It’s the third character,” said Yee, who wasn’t explicit about the set in his stage directions, trusting Aquino and the stage designers to recreate the A-frame. “It speaks loudly and is a force to be to be reckoned with. They brought it to life inside that theatre.”

Yee is surprised that these poets haven’t been brought to the stage before, but this summer another theatrical production will revive Purdy in a very different way.

“The Shape of Home: Songs in Search of Al Purdy,” which premieres July 14, adapts the poet’s words to music. Set outdoors at the Festival Players outdoor pavilion in Prince Edward County, it is in many ways an ode to Purdy’s beloved land and lake.

Festival Players artistic director Graham Abbey was inspired watching Soulpepper Theatre’s 2020 musical tribute to Leonard Cohen and hired the same team, led by actor and director Hailey Gillis, to produce a similar exploration of Purdy’s work. Dramaturge Marni Jackson — co-creator and narrator of the Cohen show — also brings insider experience: she co-wrote Brian D. Johnson’s 2015 documentary “Al Purdy Was Here,” which raised money to support the A-frame’s upkeep and writers’ residency.

“We gave the team a small stipend and said, ‘Go play’ and they came back with the most extraordinary catalogue of original songs that they composed mostly over Zoom during the pandemic, all using his poetry to inspire the songs,” said Abbey, who recalled that late Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie was another devoted Purdy fan. “I was blown away. The rhythm of Purdy’s prose fits so beautifully into song.”

“The Shape of Home” is not a biographical retelling. Gillis came up with the idea to call the production an investigation, to capture the eclectic nature of Purdy’s poetry, with Jackson acting as something of a knowledge keeper, ensuring the songs stay true to his spirit.

“There’s lots of Canadiana; they’re riding the rails and building houses by the lake in the county, but they’re also vignettes of a life. We really want the audience to hear his words,” said Abbey. “Al Purdy is a tough guy to nail down and I think that’s why his poetry is so exciting. He wasn’t a guy that fit cleanly into a box.”

SHARE: