There are always artistic things happening in this Northern Ontario town, but Matthew Heiti’s Crestfallen Theatre group (including past Poet Laureate, Daniel Aubin, Daniel Bedard, Jorge Cueto, Marc Donato, Jenny Hazleton, France Huot, Patrick Ryan, and Dani Taillefer) is one of the most innovative. A few of these people are my friends, so I’m going to admit that I have a bias here, but I still think it’s important to reflect on what Heiti is doing here in Sudbury. He and this dynamic band of ‘creatives’ transformed the highest floor of Querney’s Office Plus building into a pale and ghosted likeness of the old Silverman’s Department Store that operated in the space from 1911 to 1975. I don’t remember it. I’m too young, but I remember my grandmother and great-aunts talking about it. I also remember Mary Fournier having her Elm Tree Books & Things store on the bottom floor. She used to wrap whatever you bought from her in Silverman’s paper, which was pretty darn cool. It was like there was a shadow store behind her store somewhere, hidden behind closed doors.
Matt’s done great work in running the Playwrights’ Junction, via the Sudbury Theatre Centre (STC), over the past few years, encouraging local writers to delve into writing for the stage — even if some of us think we can’t, or don’t know how. He’s an excellent teacher and mentor for Northern Ontario playwrights, and even more fun to have as a friend. He wrote “Mucking in the Drift,” a play that focused on Sudbury’s baseball past and was produced at STC in 2013. His love of local history, and of digging through the old microfiche machines at the public library, is pretty common knowledge among local writers in town. Part of being in the Junction sessions was researching local history, trying to find stories that we could ‘mine’ for our own use in our new works of drama. What you learn, as a writer, is that your city has many stories to tell, and so many of them vanish without a hint of protest.
It came as no surprise, then, that Matt would spearhead BrokeDownTown, pulling together a group of amazingly creative folks to build what they termed as a ‘phantasmagoria,” a mixed-media installation followed by a short performance. Performers met audience members in the alley behind the Querney building, with Marc Donato wandering out with a guitar, assuming the persona of Burt Northburn and serenading folks while Jorge Cueto documented everything with his camera. Everyone was in costume. We were entering “Nickelman’s,” a fictional department store that was based on the old Silverman’s store. Climbing those three flights of stairs took us back into another world. There were multi-media experiences to take part in, including my favourite, which allowed you to write a message and then hear it zip off with a thunk above your head to someone who would write you a response. It was delightful, and I felt like a little kid, remembering how simple things can be fun. There was a graphic novel telling the story of Nickleman’s, with panels by Dani Taillefer hanging on columns, so you could read through it all. Dan Bedard created the soundscape for the entire thing, which was obviously a huge undertaking. It felt, at times, as if I was eavesdropping on the past. It also felt overwhelming, just because it was such a grand space. It was sensory overload, but it was wonderful! The wood floors stretched out forever, and the crew had created a “Nickelman’s” bar, complete with a bartender. Little strings of Christmas lights dazzled up above our heads, and strange half-mannequins and hat boxes were clustered in little visual vignettes. It was, quite simply, like a buffet for the senses. I loved it! 🙂
Hazleton and Huot drew on their acting and clowning training so that people were in stitches all night as the two wandered almost aimlessly (but not quite!) through the crowds of explorers. Heiti never came out of character until the end of the night, which could be frustrating if you were trying to congratulate him on his undertaking! Matt was the ringmaster. He circulated, in character, gathering in audience members, interacting, and (I’m sure) thinking heavily about what he could do differently. (It was perfect, I thought, but I know he is someone who rethinks and revises his work, whose mind is always active, so why would this project be any different? Plus, as writers, we are always having to release something to the world even though it could be continually revised and reworked. I struggle with this all the time, not wanting to send in a ‘final’ poem in case I want to change it in two days’ time! Even though he stayed in character, you knew — if you know Matt — that his mind was working away at high speed, taking everything in and considering all angles.) Aubin wandered around in his top hat and answered questions (if you were nosy enough to ask, as I always am!) His “If I had a nickel” performance poem, which was part of the performance piece of the evening, was simply brilliant. It made me think about how much of our downtown core has perished without a blink. So much history has been erased in the core of Sudbury’s downtown and continues to be destroyed. We can only hope that groups like Crestfallen Theatre will continue to remind us of what we’ve lost.
Here’s what made me smile so much last night: spending time with other writer friends, interacting with the various multi-media exhibits and actors, and then seeing the beauty of the actual short performance. It was all so beautifully woven together. It was all so unique, so eccentric, so quirky, so not like traditional Sudbury theatre. That’s what made it divine, I think, that sense of diversity and excitement. It was also great to re-connect with John Querney (we used to be on the Laurentian University Alumni Association Board years ago) and hear about how excited he was to work with Matt and his group, and how proud he was of the Silverman’s mural that hovers above the stairs as you enter onto what used to be the fabric floor. John cares about the history of his building. He knows he’s a steward. That made me smile. It felt like walking into a time machine, somehow…like walking between worlds.
Here’s what made me sad last night: the entire thing made me realize just how much Sudbury has erased itself through history. It’s not just a nickel and mining town, although that’s obviously at the root of it all. (You can’t ignore the roots of this place, especially when you often see people posting on Facebook “Hey, was that a rock burst? Did anyone else feel it in the south end?”) You also, though, can take a look at those old YouTube videos of downtown Sudbury in the 1970s and wonder “Where did all the people downtown go?” It’s a good question. The downtown I grew up in, when my parents had a gift shop on Cedar Street, was always alive with people–characters who were larger than life. It might’ve been that I was very young, and they all seemed like characters in a book, because I was an introvert and a big reader, but I don’t see that as much anymore when I walk downtown. That makes me sad.
We have a role to play in this city, in how we choose to move forward. Being involved in BrokeDownTown last night, as an ‘audience’ member, made me think again about what sort of place I want to see the city evolve into. I know, for certain, that we can’t continue erasing history and paving parking lots. I know that…
peace,
k.
The Republic of Poetry 
Leave a Reply