The Jungle

Can Jack and Veronyka ever get ahead? In this all-too-relatable love story in a city suffocating under late-stage capitalism, a young couple is pitted against odd after odd in a way that isn’t about testing one’s character anymore—it’s simply reality.

Jack, a second-generation Chinese Canadian cab driver meets Veronyka, an undocumented factory worker and waitress from Moldova, as he’s bringing her from one job to the other. Their chance encounter blooms into an unlikely romance, stolen in moments between shifts, and then a hasty marriage, which solves migration issues but brings the pair even deeper into the challenges of providing for themselves and their families. The painful death of both of Jack’s parents and the sense of helplessness that has dogged both of their families leads Jack and Veronkya to desperate measures to escape. Some hard work mixed with some political blackmail brings them to a new life, but at what cost?

• Inspired by Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle.
• This play paints a stark and realistic portrait of what it’s like to live in cities such as Toronto currently, especially as a young person battling late-stage capitalism.
• First produced by Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, in October 2019