Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2025 03:09:51 +0000 To: Daniel MacKay From: Robin Metcalfe Subject: Re: Weldon Bona Hi, Daniel. Weldon Bona was my first roommate in an upstairs flat I lived in on Lawrence Street in the late 1970s. He is the only roommate whom I have ever evicted, so my memories of him are not quite as glowing as those of your interviewee, Maryellen Watt. That said, Weldon was very personable, and very active in theatre, as Maryellen describes. We got along fine once he was no longer living with me, and he deserves mention as a significant contributor to Queer culture around here. I have the original programme for the production of The Bald Soprano of which she speaks, and I remember attending it in the Macaloney Room. It is one of the more famous absurdist plays. The company was called Theatre of the Ear, and they presented works in the manor of radio plays, on CKDU. Even when performing to a live audience, they stood before mics: it was, in music terms, a recital rather than a performance in the usual theatrical sense. This worked well with their repertoire, placing the emphasis on the text, and expressive aspects of pronunciation, enunciation and timing. I have attached a scan of the programme. It is unfortunately undated, but the recordings in the CFAT fonds at Dal are dated from 2 November 1979 to 7 November 1987. The Bald Soprano is not listed among the recordings, but I would date the programme as probably 1979, from the time Weldon was living with me. I majored in Theatre at Dal, my first year there, 1976-77. I changed my major to History in year two, but I had connections with the theatre crowd, and may have met Weldon through those. Weldon was certainly gay, and the theatre circles in which he moved were as Queer as theatre circles usually are. He was originally from industrial Cape Breton, where theatre served in those days as the principal vehicle of Queer social and cultural expression. He ended up back in Cape Breton. See the attached bio, which is the obit posted on his Facebook page the day he died. There are some photos of him on his Facebook page. I've attached the one I consider the best, by Carol Kennedy. She is a professional photographic artist, so use of her image should be handled with proper credit and permission. Regards, Robin Robin Metcalfe (he, him / il, lui / buddy) robinmetcalfe@proton.me 1311 Passage Road, Sheet Harbour Passage, NS, Canada, B0J 3B0 Weijuik, Eskikewa'kik District, Mi'kma'ki despair is a luxury / that we cannot afford hope is not a comfort but / a civic duty it does not shelter us / but calls us out / into the storm