Six neighbours, a heatwave, a friend who’s disappeared, and a sudden sinkhole in the backyard—the latest production from Infinithéâtre takes a close look at what happens when what’s been buried suddenly bubbles to the surface.
Sinkhole (or six ways to disappear) is set in a working-class Montreal community, where a group of intergenerational Black neighbours go about their day-to-day lives against the backdrop of a gaping hole in the earth during an unusually hot summer.
Although few appear concerned, the sinkhole begins to speak to something in each of them—from student to recent graduate, working professional, homemaker, and a man just days from retirement. In the midst of it all is growing concern for a friend and neighbour who hasn’t been seen since the hole appeared.
In confronting not only the physical changes in their neighbourhood but their own subconscious ones, each character learns to face what’s hidden—and rely on each another to find their way back out again.
Compelling and impeccably performed, Sinkhole offers space for truth, honesty, cooperation, queerness, questions of gentrification, racialized communities, and what it means to be a Montrealer.
“Where do you find community, and what does it mean to you?” asks Sinkhole director Keith Fernandez, and the answers are closer than you may think.
Sinkhole (or six ways to disappear) is playing at La Chapelle, Scènes Contemporaines until February 1, in English with French surtitles. Tickets can be purchased here.
