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Gallery Songs from Cruel Tears
Ken Mitchell and Humphrey and the Dumptrucks
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love. (Othello 5.2)
These songs from Ken Mitchell's Cruel Tears, a country and western adaptation of Othello, are performed by Humphrey and the Dumptrucks. Cruel Tears was a national hit when it premiered during Persephone Theatre's 1974/75 inaugural season. In 1976, Cruel Tears was remounted for a national tour, and was produced again at the Globe Theatre in Regina in 1999.
In the play, Johnny, a handsome trucker, and his lovely new wife, Kathy, are drawn into the psychological traps of fellow trucker Jack--the play's Iago-figure--who targets Johnny's Ukranian herritage just as Iago targets Othello's blackness. Desdemona's handkerchief becomes a scarf given to Kathy by Johnny's mother at their wedding.
In Cruel Tears, Mitchell uses Shakespeare's Othello to address the historical significance and persecution of Ukrainians in Canada (please see the Canadian Enclyclopedia entry on "Ukrainians"). The first major immigration (170 000 peasants) occured from 1891 to 1914. The wave of Ukrainian immigration stopped in 1914 with the commencement of the war, and the Canadian government classified unnaturalized Ukarainians as "enemy aliens" and approximately 6000 were interned during the war. At the same time, however, more than 10 000 Ukrainians enlisted in the Canadian armed forces. By 1918, opportunities for bilingual education in Ukrainian in Saskatchewan and Manitoba were shut down. Education in Ukrainian was never allowed in Alberta.
The next waves of Ukrainian immigration occured between the two wars (70 000 Ukrainians) and between 1947 and 1954 (34 000 Ukrainians). In 1996, over a million Canadians claimed either Ukrainian origins or partial Ukrainian ancestry. Cruel Tears, then, like many other Shakespearean adaptations produced in Canada, grapples with the central issue of immigration and the play among cultural diversity, pluralism, and fear of difference that has helped to define contemporary Canada.
Audio Clips:
One
More for the Women
Jack's Soliloquy
Talking Blues/Catalogue Blues
Homemaker's Duet
Race Ballad
Willow Song
