Leaving HomeDavid FrenchDrama 2 Acts - Toronto 1972 Billy Mercer, youngest and favourite son of Jacob Mercer, a Toronto working man, is on the point of marrying his pregnant girlfriend, Kathy Jackson, mainly to escape the odium facing unmarried parents in the provincial moral atmosphere of fifties Canada. Jacob is unaware that his eldest son, Ben, with whom he has never got on, will be leaving home to live with Billy and Kathy, in order to escape Jacob's foul temper and brittle displays of pride. As Kathy's mother, Minnie, and her boyfriend, Harold, arrive at the Mercer's home for a wedding eve celebration, Kathy informs Billy that she has miscarried, leaving him free to break off the wedding. Billy considers his course of action as the celebration turns into a serious drinking spree, during which Jacob constantly jibes at Ben, whom he accuses of being ashamed of his origins. In exasperation with Jacob's bullying, his long suffering wife, Mary,
reveals that without Ben's recent financial contributions, made to
her in secret, the family would long have gone bankrupt, and that Ben,
too, is leaving home. Cast
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