Soldier's Heart

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Soldier’s Heart, the fifth of David French’s acclaimed plays about
the Mercer family, is a finely constructed prequel to the 1984
Salt-Water Moon. It is June 30th, 1924—almost eight years to the day
since the historic Battle of the Somme. Sixteen-year-old Jacob, the
future Mercer patriarch, is at the train station awaiting the arrival of
Newfoundland’s famously slow Caribou. Frustrated and frightened by his
father’s brooding, withdrawn behavior, Jacob has decided to start a
new life. While he is waiting, he is introduced to the Somme through the
recollections of stationmaster Bert Taylor, who fought in the battle
alongside Jacob’s father, Esau. When Esau turns up to bring his son
home, we learn how the memories of that terrible time caused the
estrangement between father and son. We also learn that Esau is
suffering from “soldier’s heart,” later known as “shell shock”
and, today, as “post-traumatic stress disorder.”

French has written another fine play. His earlier work, Salt-Water
Moon, received the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play.