Get ready to laugh, cry, and maybe clutch your keepsakes just a little bit closer . . . because Big Stuff is here.
In Big Stuff, the endlessly clever comedy duo Matt Baram and Naomi Sniekus unpack life’s emotional baggage in an unforgettable night of cathartic comedy at Crow’s Theatre. From tangible keepsakes to emotional memories, the real-life partners explore what we compulsively keep and what we choose to let go of. In the process, they offer audiences a candid, vulnerable and humorous take on love, loss, and nostalgia. Co-created by Baram (Painkiller, Umbrella Academy), Sniekus (The Social, Disney’s Zombies), and Dora Award-winning director Kat Sandler (WILDWOMAN, Mustard, Yaga), the show runs from November 15 to December 8, 2024, with previews starting November 12.
“I still have clothes from when I was in theatre school,” Sniekus admits – before dropping the boom on sentimentality with the news that she has “stopped giving Matt presents that he can’t eat or use up.” Baram recalls a particularly memorable gift: “Yes, Naomi once got me hip-hop classes for my birthday. Surprised me at the studio.” He laughs, “It was the hardest thing I ever did. And it wasn’t pretty. Me doing hip-hop is like Tim Hortons selling pizza. It’s mediocre at best, and absolutely nobody asked for it.”
For the duo, Big Stuff represents, well, a big shift from their familiar improv style. They have honed their chemistry over years of improvisational work (not to mention cohabitation), but this is the first time they are performing a scripted piece that they wrote together. “As performers, we’ve always loved working together, particularly in improv where there’s no script, and everything is made up on the spot,” Sniekus explains. “But writing Big Stuff together allowed us to bring a new depth to our work, blending the spontaneity we love with a fully realized script. Plus, we get to dig into some real-life relationship dynamics—and let’s just say nothing is off-limits!”
And Sniekus means it: the duo’s creative process saw them questioning literally “every day” whether their emerging show had crossed a line. “Both Matt and I ride the wave of thinking ‘this is too personal’ and then challenging ourselves to be as vulnerable and open as possible. When you write something that is so close to your heart, we believe it’s our job as artists to expose our truth—so that others will be able to relate. If we pretended to be a perfect couple, no one would relate,” and, she laughs, “certainly, no one would believe us!”
Baram emphasizes how they leaven that openness with humour: “It’s the only way we could write about something like loss. There are many skilled people in Toronto that can write a play about how loss can affect a relationship, but we hope our comedic take makes our point of view as a comedy duo unique.”
Big Stuff brings the couple’s well-known chemistry—described by Sandler as “undeniable”—to the forefront, exploring their dynamic with honesty, warmth, and wit. “There’s a lot of things that Matt and I don’t have to say in creating this play—we have a shorthand,” Sniekus reflects. But it does have limits: “Sometimes you think, ‘Oh, they know what I mean,’ but the other person absolutely doesn’t! No matter how long we’ve been married, we still haven’t found a way of reading each other’s minds entirely.”
Their personal connection can blur the lines between work and home life, but they embrace the overlap. “Nothing you can do,” Sniekus smiles. “Especially with improv and art—it’s all going to come out on stage.” For Baram, it’s a tightrope act that works brilliantly, so long as they remember their good intentions: “Things get heated when we care. If we can remember that, then we can name it, and get back to the laughs.”
Like the stuff under discussion, those laughs are big, precisely because they are powered by big hearts: “It’s been a really joyful journey of being able to reflect on and celebrate our parents, and what big stuff we hold onto from them,” notes Sniekus. And though Big Stuff is more scripted than their past work, Baram and Sniekus include an interactive element, weaving audience stories into each performance. “We’re hoping at the end of their experience, audiences have had a chance to share and reflect on some of their big stuff, too,” Sniekus notes. This spontaneity makes the show, well, bigger – and keeps it alive and evolving with each performance.
As Baram sums up, “Objects hold memories” – and in Big Stuff, Baram and Sniekus invite all of us to use laughter to survey our objects, reflect on and appreciate our memories . . . and in the process maybe, just maybe, let go of a little of life’s biggest “stuff.”
Big Stuff runs from November 15 to December 8, 2024, with previews starting November 12. Reserve tickets at crowstheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine, 2024
