Niagara’s migrant workers focus of new ECT show
The plight of Niagara’s migrant workers and their families comes to the stage in a new Essential Collective Theatre play opening Friday.
Our Lady of Delicias, written by Brock University associate professor of dramatic arts David Fancy, is the surreal story of a Mexican migrant worker who is lonely for his daughter and pregnant wife while working the Niagara vineyards for a sixth year. He prays to Delicias, the patron saint of his village back home, for strength. Instead, the Aztec goddess of drought Atlacoya hears his call and threatens to drink all the water of the Great Lakes.
Fancy says the play explores the complex issue of forced migration, for safety or work, “with a closeup focus on the experience of one agricultural migrant worker family.
“The play also engages a wideangle perspective on much larger historical and cosmic forces that intersect with this one story.”
Starring Juan Carlos Velisis, Josee Young, Carla Melo and Camila Diaz-Varela, the play is the first under Essential Collective Theatre’s new artistic director Colin Bruce Anthes. It is directed by ECT’s former artistic director, Monica Dufault.
“Our Lady is a culmination of work David has been doing with and about migrant workers for the past decade,” says Anthes. “(It) was a passion project of Monica’s from its inception and was developed through ECT’s Wine & Reading
series, a process I was privileged to be a part of.
“It is a piece dear to all of our hearts, and profoundly rooted in the Niagara community.”
Dufault says the play digs into some “thorny terrain” of a longstanding Niagara issue.
“David Fancy’s script provides a complexity and depth to the characters in this world, making us question our assumptions, our desires and even place on this planet.”
The play comes with a mature content warning, and plays FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre until March 4. Matinee performances on Feb. 24 and 25 will include talkbacks immediately after the show hosted by Anthes.
“I’ve no doubt this play will be one that stays with you for a long time,” he says.