We have also visited the sets and costumes department ; all very busy with students. And finally the attics. Well, they were not located on the last floor but those rooms had the same purpose. A kind of warehouse, a bric-à-brac, filled with thousands of treasures : artifacts, costumes, everything you need to stage a play. A wonderful place to fulfill a child’s dreams. Had we been younger, my friends and I would have spent more time enjoying the magic of childhood.

As we went along, more hallways : some in the dark, a bit of light here and there, more shadows and darkness ; we ended up under the stage, to a series to small rooms, almost empty except for a lighted mirror, chairs, a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a dangerously low ceiling. A hot and suffocating atmosphere, a sort of recovery room : the dressing rooms.

I could hardly read someone’s name written in black on one of the walls. There were others, but I just remember that name.

A name written on a wall, simply, without risking someone’s life, like those written from the grille. A plain signature left as a witness. A footprint on the sand that no tide could erase. The other reason that the name had still an echo in my ear, as I had seen him recently in a play at Théâtre de Quatre Sous. It had been a marvelous evening. This young actor, who was about the same age as my brother was so talented. Lucky man who came up and grew up as an actor within theses walls filled with grace and magic.

Coming out of the dressing room, I stopped for the last time, to glance at the name on the wall, knowing very well that this sign of his presence as well as all the other names written over the grille would disappear forever during the renovations. The old building and I sighed together.
But the old theater needed that money very badly. It had become a dangerous site. It was dying. But while fixing up its old wounds and giving it a new look, precious old souvenirs would vanish and I hoped that the names over the grille would escape the fatality and would always remain as an evidence.

Once out on St. Lawrence boulevard that night, a page of our History had been turned.

Roy Dupuis’ name would disappear from this wall. The sea will always erase our footsteps on the
sand. Did he sign off his name or somebody else did ? Who cares...the reference is precious as a scar on an old whale.

Theater is short-lived in a sense that it lives and dies in one evening but will relive again for the next show. What’s left after all : memories, the ink and paper, or the film, that will remain as perennial for all of us.