PlaySmelter Readings: Storytold Strikes

Storytold Strikes
By Rick Duthie

Sudbury Strike Stories is a site-specific historical play that focusses on the postwar incidences of strikes in Sudbury, Ontario. It is early in its development and is currently told episodically, as a transgenerational memory play, through multiple points of view. Put simply, the story is told through exchanges of memories, chronologically in time, beginning in the Great Depression and ending in 2018. We are enlisted in this journey back in time with the help of a young girl. Laurie vividly remembers the 1958 strike. She eavesdrops, listening in on the heated exchanges occurring at her kitchen table, while she should really be in bed. Her memories invoke the stories of her family and friends as we move forward in time. Often conflicting experiences striking, working and living in Sudbury interrupt and disturb her version of these events. She tries to sort it all out, a tangled mess of memories that change and shift as she grows older. She blinks and finds herself accompanying her husband on that picket line in the late 70s. Her father is long gone, and all the old timers are retired. What remains consistent is this kitchen table, a pivotal location for these exchanges. When later we see these events staged, what does it all mean? What does she hold on to? What can she let go?

Saturday May 5th: 5:00 PM (With Artist Talkback)
BackSpace, Sudbury Theatre Centre

Tickets $15 | PlaySmelter All-In Festival Pass $85