At the Arts Club Granville Island Stage until August 29, 2021
Tickets from $39 at www.artsclub.com
Posted August 20, 2021
A fate worse than death is how all of us would describe being buried 4,000-4,300 meters underground. That’s where creator Beau Dixon sets the scene for Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story. Set designer Ted Roberts provides a chilling re-imagining of the huge, ash-coloured wooden timbers that were supposed to support the underground galleries but which, following a “bump” (underground seismic event), gave way and trapped one hundred and seventy-four coalminers on October 23, 1958 in Springhill, Nova Scotia. Jeff Harrison’s eery lighting hints at the profound darkness that the miners found themselves in as tons of rock, coal and debris blocked their escape.
Cumberland #2 was, at the time, the deepest coal mine in North America. Small bumps were not an infrequent occurrence but this one was major and was felt well beyond the pit. Seventy-five men died; eighty-one managed to make their way to the surface; the rest awaited rescue by draegermen, miners trained in rescue work. The final rescue was on November 1 – a full nine days after the disaster. Six men, including African-Canadian Maurice Ruddick were brought out alive; one body – that of a veteran miner who had survived previous mining disasters – was retrieved.
What makes this particular event – only one of so many other mining disasters worldwide – so memorable and the source materials for Beau Dixon and composers/lyricists Rob Fortin and Susan Newman? In two words: media attention.
From Wikipedia: “The disaster became famous for being the first major international event to appear in live television broadcasts on CBC. As the world waited and those on the surface kept their vigil, rescuers continued to toil below ground trying to reach trapped survivors.” The pithead swarmed with journalists and photographers from everywhere, bringing the story into the living rooms of people all over the world. And from this event sprang countless songs, poems, an invitation to appear on Ed Sullivan, an all-expense holiday in the state of Georgia for ‘some’ of the last group rescued (but, shamefully, not Ruddick because of the colour of his skin) and job opportunities. Springhill and Maurice Ruddick, the ‘Singing Miner’, were on the map.
Ruddick was a singer/songwriter who “wanted to sing under the bright lights” but who ended up bolstering – through song – the spirits of the men trapped with him in a space only a meter deep. No water, no food, no light, diminishing oxygen, fading hope of rescue. For this he received the Citizen of the Year Award and is regarded as the hero of the Springhill Mine Disaster of 1958.
Why did he abandon his hopes and dreams to work in the coal mine? He had a wife and twelve kids to provide for and the love for that big family is what gave him the courage to survive.
Jeremiah Sparks is Maurice Ruddick in this one-man show and he is a charming, charismatic performer with a voice that is alternately gravelly and silky. He brings such warmth and good humour to Ruddick that we are onside with the character right from the get-go. Sparks plays various characters including Ruddick’s wife, his 10-year-old daughter and Dougie, who can’t wait to drink a 7 Up after being rescued.
Is Beneath Springhill hard to watch? Yes. There will be knot in your gut as Sparks drags himself around in that cramped, meter-high space. But it’s hard not to respond to the songs and text that are delivered with so much hope and positivity. And besides, we all know Ruddick gets rescued. It’s only a matter of when and how.
In a pandemic time when optimism is hard to come by, Beneath Springhill, directed by Bobby Garcia, can be viewed in one way as inspiring. In another way, disasters like this happen elsewhere and we seldom even hear about them – a mere blip on the late night news. Too true is the refrain from The Ballad of Springhill by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, “When the earth is restless, miners die/Bone and blood is the price of coal”.
The most interesting piece of information that came out of my research into this play is this: “An unexpected legacy and benefit from the abandoned coal mines is being realized in the form of geothermal energy. Since their closure, the mines have filled with ground water which is heated to an average temperature of 18° C (65 °F) by the surrounding earth. Beginning in the late 1980s, this heat source has been exploited by companies located in Springhill’s industrial park [in which the Springhill Coal Mining National Historic Site of Canada is located], reducing winter heating bills substantially.” You just have to love it, don’t you?
Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story is a heart-warming piece of Canadian history: not profound but solidly entertaining. Great set. Terrific performance.