Corker

Corker is a fast-moving play that juxtaposes the harried, affluent lifestyle of a middle-class professional couple against the handicapped who are either homeless or living in substandard housing. Produced by the Eastern Front Theatre Company at Neptune Theatre’s DuMaurier Stage in Halifax, the play debuted in 1998 and was a finalist for the Governor-General’s Award by 1999. Set in an affluent neighbourhood, the play focuses on Merit MacPhee, the premier’s right-hand woman, and her husband, lawyer Leonard Mills, both of whom epitomize the shallow materialism of the era. More concerned about paying for their new solarium and maintaining fashionable appearances, they fail miserably when it comes to their personal relationships. Merit’s family needs emotional help in a cold and callous world essentially constructed by Merit and Leonard, and people like them, yet Merit and Leonard cannot reach out to help them.

The play begins with the death of Merit’s sister Serena, an event which exacerbates the problems in this fragile family. The funeral scene contrasts the world of hippy volunteer Serena, whose last request was to have her family “bunny hop” out of the church with her friends, whom they see as street bums. After the funeral, the MacPhees are alarmed when Corker, a developmentally delayed man, enters Merit and Leonard’s house. Serena cared for Corker, who is on the margins of society. He is waiting to get into a group home, but his wait means he must endure a place called “The Pit” where his roommate calls him a retard and shoves frozen dog feces into his socks. Repeatedly, Corker escapes from the Pit and roams Halifax until he ends up at Merit and Leonard’s house. Presumably, Merit reminds Corker of Serena, and Serena’s piano, which sits in the MacPhee’s living room, becomes a source of comfort for him.

After each of Corker’s break-in attempts, Merit drags him back to his caseworker, Glenny. Glenny tries to vocalize the plight of the mentally ill to the cabinet clerk, even though Merit cannot understand why there is no place for people like Corker. In the premier’s world of privatization and cutbacks, little money is allotted for the social service programs that provide for Corker and others like him. The premier would rather sell group homes to businesses that run prisons—institutions more concerned with profit than providing adequate housing for the Corkers of the world.

Merit and Leonard represent people corrupted by a modern, materialistic order while Corker symbolizes a simpler world focusing on love, happiness, loyalty. Though Merit aims to change Corker so that he will not break into their house, it is not Corker requiring the transformation: it is Merit. As the play progresses, she becomes torn between wanting to help her family and longing to keep her world as crisp and neat as her house.

Leonard tries to pacify her by saying they help those in need enough; they play a charity basketball game annually, and occasionally put money into the cups of panhandlers. In comparison to Serena’s giving, the MacPhee philosophy does not seem enough, especially when Merit’s brother Gal asks for money to keep the family home from being repossessed for a mortgage he cannot pay. Leonard and Merit’s decision not to prop up Gal aligns them with the mantra of the government to live and let die: “The more we give him, the further he’s going to sink,” says Leonard. This is not unlike the cutbacks to social services, ostensibly cut for the same reasons.

Though the play focuses on one family, Lill illustrates the plight of those with mental health issues, whether they are developmentally delayed or suicidal, as well as the homeless. The overabundant wealth of the upper middle class seems incongruous next to the inadequate care of underprivileged Nova Scotians. The groups become separated even more by government cuts originating in the same upper class. Conflict pervades this play on both the private and public level, as Merit represents private and public through her work for the social program-cutting premier, and her lack of empathy for her suffering family and Corker. The treatment of disability and social programs reflects Lill’s concerns for disabled people, as she served as the New Democratic Party’s spokesperson on disability issues during her stint as Dartmouth Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2004.