By Galen Simmons

A single-room play lives or dies on its character development. Without strong characters with rich backgrounds and motivations the audience can understand and relate to, the story itself never moves beyond the four walls it is being told within.

Inspired by the Stratford Festival’s 2018 production of playwright Eugene O’Neil’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, London, Ont., playwright Andrea Scott set out to tell a similar story for Black-Canadian audiences of one family’s struggle and the love for one another that underpins their personal and interpersonal challenges.

Having seen the very same production that inspired Get That Hope, I truly believe Scott, director André Sills and the cast and crew have achieved so much more.

While this is certainly a play about a family dealing with issues stemming from each member’s past and present circumstances, telling the story from the perspectives of a modern Jamaican-Canadian family living in their cramped apartment in Toronto’s Little Jamaica offers so much rich character history to draw from.

That history – be it Richard and Margaret Whyte’s (Conrad Coates and Kim Roberts) immigration and love stories, and their own upbringings in Jamaica; Rachel and Simeon Whyte’s (Celia Aloma and Savion Roach) childhoods as step-siblings and their relationships with each other, their parents and their Jamaican heritage; and the similar-yet-contrasting experiences of Filipino-Canadian physical therapist and neighbour Millicent Flores (Jennifer Villaverde) – is a masterclass in weaving complex and captivating backstories into onstage interactions without the need for heavy handed exposition.

And while Get That Hope is a story about a family whose members share those newcomer and first-generation experiences so many new Canadians and their children can relate to, the issues that drive the plot are universally relatable, whether you grew up here or not.

From concerns for Richard’s increasing short-term memory loss and Margaret’s struggles with physical pain to Rachel’s Millennial drive to work around the clock and save as much money as she can just to be able to support herself, let alone her whole family, and Simeon’s quarter-life stagnation as he copes with severe PTSD from his time as a peacekeeper, each character brings their own complexities to the tapestry that is the Whyte family dynamic.

Even the setting – a tiny apartment with dated appliances and furniture immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever rented at the low end of the market – is relatable. The daily routines, close quarters and lack of disposable income certainly hit close to home for me, as I’m sure it does for many audience members. The use of street art, lighting and sound effects serves to ground the apartment setting in the real world and reminds us this family’s strife is not happening in a vacuum.

The performances in this production are really what brought this story to life for me. Each actor had the opportunity to portray their character’s daily routine and confront their most-pressing issues while responding to incursions from the outside world – be it intrusive construction or a condo-developer’s bankruptcy – without taking the audience beyond the confines of their home.

If, like me, you’re a fan of strong character development supported by a brilliant cast of actors, this is the play for you.

Get That Hope runs at the Studio Theatre until Sept. 28.