In My Father’s Words

In an old wooden house by the shore of Lake Ontario in Canada, Louis battles with his elderly father, Don, whose decline into dementia is gradually robbing him of the ability to speak.  Louis’ professional success as a university teacher of Classics belies an emotional inarticulacy which matches his father’s inability to express himself in words.

And then into their lives comes Flora, the carer that Louis employs to look after Don.  Flora is of Scottish heritage and a good listener, and she understands that the ‘nonsense’ which Don speaks is fragmented Gaelic, opening up an ocean of revelations and buried family history spanning the Atlantic.

‘While you were gone, I tried to be the man you were.
I mended the boats as you had done.
I felled the trees as you had done.
Every week my hope grew
That you would return to me.
And we would go fishing on Loch Roag’

In My Father’s Words is a beautiful play about identity – national and personal – and language, and the utter indivisibility between the two.

In the year that the Commonwealth Games comes back to Scotland, the Rep presents a play which re-tells the Scottish emigrant story for our times.