OBITUARY: David French dead at 71
6 Dec'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI AGENCY

His stories made us laugh and they made us cry, even while they helped us realize that Canadian stories were worth telling.
And while his passing will be mourned by the Canadian theatre community, David French's life will be celebrated, in a very real sense, every time one of his plays is produced. Rarely has an autobiography been so beautifully etched for the stage.

French's death at 71, reportedly after a battle with brain cancer, was announced this weekend. Born in Newfoundland in 1939, French grew up in Toronto, and while he enjoyed some success as an actor and a writer for television in his early career, he found his real calling it seems in 1971 when he submitted a script to a nascent theatre company being formed by Toronto theatre pioneer Bill Glassco.

The theatre, of course, was Tarragon and the play was LEAVING HOME, which would go on to be produced at virtually every regional theatre across Canada, its story of the troubled Mercer clan -- a clan like so many others of the era, making the transition from the rural life to the urban -- clearly resonating from coast to coast LEAVING HOME would soon be joined by two other plays to comprise what became known as the Mercer Trilogy, with OF THE FIELDS, LATELY documenting the familial fortunes post-Leaving Home and SALT WATER MOON, romanticizing its very beginnings.

They were all, French freely admitted, more or less autobiographical and they would cement his reputation as one of Canada's leading theatrical voices. He would go on to write other plays about the Mercer family, none of which enjoyed the success of the original three, as well as several other plays, including a murder thriller titled SILVER DAGGER.

But aside from the Mercer Trilogy, his greatest success would come in his single foray into comedy -- a fictionalized backstage slice of life titled JITTERS, that has gone on to become one of the best known and most successful Canadian stage comedies of all time.

In his later years, French moved away from playwrighting and into education, serving as writer-in-residence for a time at both the University of Windsor and the University of Western Ontario and teaching a summer course in playwrighting at the University of Prince Edward Island -- the province in which he made a long-time summer home.

Though it had been several years since a new French play had been produced, his work found a new audience and new popularity in a series of revivals by Soulpepper Theatre Company where the entire Mercer Trilogy, as well as JITTERS, have been revived over the last few years, to both critical and audience acclaim.

But even though French did a lot of work as an actor, a screenwriter and an educator. his heart was always in his playwrighting "I really consider my real work the work I've done for the theatre," he told me back in 1994. "I've actually made a living. I can't believe I've done that. Not only a living but a damn good one. I never really expected that."

French is survived by partner Glenda MacFarlane, son Gareth and daughter Mary -- and by a body of work that is recognized as a Canadian cultural treasure. He probably never expected that either.