Theatre Review by our Theatre Reviewer Jonah Zalick #OnePlymouth
Though the departure of the Mayflower is a historic moment for our ocean city, the colonisation of America and suppression of its natives is, at the very least, a dark time. It is sometimes one that I have personally found tends to only consider the perspective of the colonisers, as opposed to those who inhabited the continent beforehand. Considering this, I was anxious to see Some Call It Home, and wondered whether different perspectives on an iconic moment would be offered. My wonderments were brought to life.
Presented by Theatre Royal Plymouth and The Arts Institute at the University of Plymouth, Some Call It Home is an on-stage multimedia drama about humanity’s relationship to the planet – our home. Beginning from the Pilgrims of the Mayflower docking at America, the show goes through several more pivotal events in culture and history; the Trinity test in New Mexico in 1945 and the Apollo 8 departure to orbit the moon in 1968, to name two. History is brought to the present by soprano Erika Baikoff and baritone Timothy Nelson, as well as string music from the Kokoro Ensemble of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mark Forkgen.
Robert Taub, Music Director of University of Plymouth’s Arts Institute, created, produced, and directed the show. Conception of the show came upon his appointment as Musical Director in 2018. He considered: ‘what would make the most sense in 2020, asking myself what elements from 1620 that would have immediacy and relevance today’. The sense of dominion that Taub’s production explores is perhaps best verbally expressed by Taub:
“On the one hand the Native Americans embraced stewardship – the idea that you could live on the land, farm it, hunt on it, and maybe even fight over particularly good parcels of land. The concept of ownership, however, was never in their thinking.
Contrast that with the very different actions of the settlers: they would find good land but then claim it as their own; this is dominion. They would build a stockade around such land, use it in any way they saw fit, and when they had exhausted its usefulness, they repeated the process elsewhere ad infinitum.”
You can read more about The story behind Some Call It Home in a University of Plymouth press post.
Jonathan Dawe and Jane O’Leary co-composed the performance, which, I am led to believe through the after-show discussion, is an unlikely happenstance. However, the two composers collaborated extremely well and, if you were to ask me, I would not be able to identify who had composed what part the Kokoro Ensemble played. The entire musical aspect of the performance flowed cohesively with the synergetic effort of composers, musicians and singers alike.
As Plymothians, many are proud that our city was part of an iconic point in time. However, Some Call It Home reminds us that it’s important to remember what effects people have had on the world when they believe they ‘own’ it. Following Taub’s wishes, the show relevantly links our present of illegal immigration, nuclear bomb testing, and man orbiting the moon, to our past of colonisation. In doing so, we are shown that our past is still our present, as fallout due to some of mankind’s attitudes to ‘ownership’ of land still remain. The Native American population that once thrived before European intervention is now far lower in comparison. The show also talks about our scorn of illegal immigrants escaping their country, when sometimes it has been our wars that have decimated their homeland.
The show that I was treated to was immensely powerful, and a refreshing look at a controversial past. I only hope that, going forward, we continue to encourage multi-faceted thinking of historical events and their effects on other people. As the show says – ‘it’s only a wilderness or a frontier if it’s unfamiliar to you. From another perspective, some call it home.’
Theatre Review by Jonah Zalick #OnePlymouth
