Salvage was our second of three collaborations with novelist and poet Michael Crummey. Based on his book of poetry, Salvage, our stage production was about what inhabits the places we live, the worlds we move in to when we move into a house, the generations who have been here before us.
We staged the original production in a large heritage home, Angel House, in old St. John’s, each room in the mansion hosting a character who once lived there. The audience is divided into ten different groups, the largest of which has seven audience members. Each audience member sees each room and meets each character. The audience groups follow a detailed map of the house for the order in which they see each separate story and the actors travel the rooms of the house creating a vibrant living home full of ghosts and memories.
Salvage opened at Angel House in St. John’s in October of 2003, and later ran for the full summer at the Commissariat House in St. John’s and the Pickersgill House in Salvage, on the Eastport Peninsula.
Photo Credit: Andy Jones in Salvage: The Story of a House.