Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram in Big Stuff, Baram and Snieckus at Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

There’s magic in … stuff. In the way it accumulates, for one thing. In the way it shrugs off mere utility like lint off a lapel. In the emotional alchemy that transforms junk — old pens, egg slicers, needlepoint portraits — into important treasures, according to a secret formula that’s a helluva lot closer to your heartbeat than any PIN.

And there’s magic in a show, now welcoming (and I use the word advisedly) audiences into the Citadel’s Rice Theatre, that’s all about that.

Big Stuff, by the married comedy duo Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus with director Kat Sandler, is an original kind of fantasia on our connection to people, moments, punch lines and human motifs we’ve lost — to the past, to memory. In a larger sense, it’s about where we find meaning, and human connection, in a world crucially short of both. You can’t help wondering if Vladimir and Estragon would have felt so unanchored to meaning in the world as they waited near a tree on a road, if only they’d had some stuff — a chipped mug, maybe, or an unravelling toque, or a lopsided bowl from an ill-fated ceramics course.

But wait, I’m thinking about myself. And that’s the other thing about the magic of Big Stuff: the way that Baram and Snieckus invite us into a play, part memoir part improv, where you can’t help doing that. Big Stuff is where your stories about your people can easily mingle with their stories about their people, without getting dressed up or putting on the dog.

‘Sharing’ in theatre is oft-referenced, seldom actually achieved. And somehow, this warm and funny pair is brave and relaxed enough to share, first, their affection for each other, their amusement, their frictions and idiosyncrasies. And then, to share their appreciation for us, our stories, and the oddball particularities of the stuff that comes attached to them.

Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram, Baram and Snieckus at the Citadel Theatre, Photo by Nanc Price.

It starts when you enter the theatre: the stage is dominated by a wall, no a veritable altar, of cardboard boxes (design: Michelle Tracey). Between the cracks there’s stuff: lamps (the lighting sources of Emilie Trimbee’s design are a narrative track in themselves) , unidentifiable objets d’art, a toaster, a phonograph….

On every seat is a little card with an invitation to “write down an item you have at home that reminds you of someone close to you.” And then somehow, in the course of their story about a return road trip from L.A. back to Toronto with a U-Haul cube van full of their stuff, this expert pair of improvisers invites people to expand, if they’re feeling it, on their chosen item and explain the connection.

The lively dynamic between Baram and Snieckus established by the play is the tension between what to keep, what to toss. As stuff accumulates, the latter can’t bear to part with her grandmother’s crochet hook, for example, even though she does not, and will never, crochet. And question not the need, as Baram does, for six toasters just because they don’t eat bread. Baram, who’s evidently an appreciator of cosmic absurdity, argues for getting rid of his dad’s wildly original collage as moving on, not getting bogged down in grief even though he feels it. He lobbies for a culling of the stuff collection. Should they just leave a whole storage unit of stuff, collected in the course of five years in L.A.? Husband and wife do not agree.

Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram in Big Stuff, Baram and Snieckus at Citadel Theatre. Photo by Nanc Price.

Since the show is fuelled by the powerful way objects conjure memories of parents lost, the audience is bound to side most often with Snieckus, who asks questions like “what was she like, your mom?” when she’s talking to people who have contributed an item. On opening night, The People rose to the occasion in startlingly beautiful and funny ways, mainly I think because the atmosphere was so un-pressurized, so safe and fun and casual. Baram and Snieckus are delightful people to talk to and with. They don’t humour the audience;  so they/we are free to feel usefully part of the show.

This is, in short, a very unusual show. It is a play, and artfully constructed from personal stories about Baram and Snieckus, their lives now, their lives growing up, their parents. It’s also a play that’s partly improvised from cues, signals, and stories from the audience that recur as motifs. These are improvisers who listen, and remember. On the night I saw the show, a widow was asked to recall how she’d met her late husband. “On a farm,” she said. How is that possible? wondered Snieckus. The woman, naturally funny, recalled the circumstances, a happy memory shaded by loss, and, I would think, she really enjoyed the experience and our collective appreciation of her, led by the performers onstage. Someone else endeavoured to sing a song her dad had always sung to her, and we all spontaneously sang along.

In a long history of cringing in the back row of theatres, pretending to be short, as volunteers are pried from the audience for the participation bits, I can honestly tell you this was dramatically different. The rapport in the room was multi-dimensional and heart-warming; stories connect us. How often do you get to call a show “lovable”? You leave with tears in your eyes and a smile on your face.

Have a peek at 12thnight’s preview interview with Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus, here.

REVIEW

Big Stuff

Theatre: A Baram and Snieckus Production in the Citadel’s Highwire Series

Created by and starring: Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus

Co-created and directed by: Kat Sandler

Running: through Nov. 9

Tickets: citadeltheatre.com, 780-425-1820