Julia Mackey didn’t expect that Jake’s Gift, a play about a D-Day veteran’s experience searching for his brother’s grave, would become her life’s work.

Yet, since 2007, and with only a brief hiatus due to the pandemic, Mackey’s multiple award-winning play has continued to resonate with those who have served in Canada’s armed forces, and those who’s family members did.

Now, on the 80th anniversary year of the D-Day invasions of Normandy during WW2, Jake’s Gift has returned to Lunchbox Theatre with a gift of its own thanks to a grant from Veterans Affairs Canada.

All veterans and active members of Canada’s military are being allowed to see the play for free.

“I’m so thrilled about that, and that… is a way of honouring them, too,” said Mackey.

“A lot of the guys that come that served in in Bosnia, or served in in Korea or served in Afghanistan, even though they weren’t there on D-Day, the story that they that Jake goes through, they see themselves as him.”

The story of Jake’s Gift explores the relationship between different generations, with Jake meeting a young French girl who doesn’t really understand a war that happened far before she was born.

The themes within the play are universal, Mackey said.

“They’re about forgiveness and gratitude and friendship, and how we deal with the loss of someone years later like Jake has, of course, as many WW2 veterans do—not just WW2 veterans, many veterans in general, they know their experience during campaigns and in the battlefield is so traumatic that they don’t talk about it,” she said.

“That was very much the case when I was interviewing veterans after I had been to Normandy for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, which is what inspired the play.”

Few veterans left to tell their story

That silence of experience has only become more deafening, as the years have passed and more veterans from the war have passed on.

Mackey said that of the veterans she knows that are still alive, the youngest is 98 years old.

“There’s something about families understanding what the legacy of that is, and how we can help our serving military get through those traumatic experiences,” she said.

“One of the things I think that is really wonderful for Jake is by the end of the play is he has cracked through this unresolved issue of never having gone to Normandy to find his brother’s grave because he felt too guilty because he survived.”

Connecting those stories back to young people so they aren’t forgotten, she said, has become more important to honour the sacrifices those men made.

“What we’ve discovered over the years of touring is that even though we do a lot of shows for young Canadians, and even though they may not have had a connection to the Second World War or it was their great-great-grandfather or great-grandfather that was the WW2 veteran, if you create a story that really honours and becomes personal, then I think as human beings, we just automatically connect to that,” Mackey said.

“One of the things that I think has been really upsetting to many of the WW2 veterans I’ve met over the years is the rise in fascism that’s happening throughout the world. That’s what they fought against. There’s that old saying about if we don’t learn our history, we’re destined to repeat it.”

She said that much like Jake’s brother in the play, Canadians have largely not been cognizant of the thousands of soldiers who were killed during that war and are buried overseas.

“This time of year especially, it’s important to remember. I know there’s a lot of things that people are upset about in the world, and in our country right now, but the truth is that we live in a really beautiful with so many freedoms, and those freedoms did not come without a price,” Mackey said.

“So, I think that some honouring those the names of those people that died is something that that we should continue to do, and Dirk [Van Stralen] and I definitely feel so lucky that 16 years later, now we’re still telling this story, and still being able to share it with other Canadians.”

Jake’s Gift runs at Lunchbox Theatre from Oct. 30 through to Nov. 17.

The play is performed by Julia Mackey, directed and stage managed by Dirk Van Stralen, and with lightning design by Gerald King.

Active duty or veteran members of Canada’s military can get their tickets for free, alongside all other ticket sales, at www.lunchboxtheatre.com/jakes-gift.