Pain and joy in this is how we got here
Because death is one of the realities of life, This is How We Got Here is a work that speaks to all of us. Things become ever more complicated when someone chooses to take their own life. Questions are often left unanswered. The guilt can be consuming. And those left behind find themselves wondering if they maybe could have done more.
In This is How We Got Here by Métis playwright Keith Barker, family and friends have their lives ripped apart when a young character we never meet dies by suicide. The message of the play ultimately ends up being an uplifting one—proof of the resilience of the human spirit, and a testimony to the impact all of us have during our short time here. But before there is peace, there is undeniable pain.
Barker acknowledges there is, very
much by design, a universality to the story told in This is How We Got Here: at some point we all experience loss. But, rooted in the suicide of two brothers who were also close family friends, the play is deeply personal.
Barker traces the play’s genesis back to the early 2000s, during the holiday season. He was at a restaurant in small-town Ontario, sitting across from a man he’s called his uncle his entire life, even though they aren’t related by blood. The uncle and his wife lost both their sons to suicide.
This is How We Got Here features a couple, Paul and Lucille—separated after the suicide of their son—dealing with the breakdown of the family bonds that once held them together. Lucille’s sister and brotherin-law refuse to discuss the death, the event putting a strain on both family relationships and previously tight friendships.
Heavy as that sounds, Barker notes that the Governor General’s Award–nominated play is, while rooted in loss, also about how we come through tragedy.
“When you say a play is about suicide, some people are like, ‘I don’t want to see that,’ ” he relates. “But there’s also so much humour in the play. For my sister and my mom and me, when anything is hard, we immediately default to jokes. When we went to visit my Auntie Jan and my Uncle Tom for the first five years when they were really in the depths of their despair, we all laughed so much.”
“Think about the funny things we do when we’re dealing with our emotions and complexities,” Barker continues. “There’s so much relief in humour.”
What turns things from the darkness to the light in This is How We Got Here is the appearance of a fox who is beyond clever, even by fox standards.
“Not to give anything away, but you can’t hang onto things,” Barker says. “You need something that gives you hope—that allows you to move forward through the grief to the other side of things.” GS
This is How We Got Here plays at the Firehall Arts Centre From April 13 to 28.