Economy of language

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(WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)

For 80 years, linguists and philosophers have been arguing back and forth about the question of whether language determines reality.

From the 1920s to the 1940s, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf popularized the notion of linguistic relativity, which posits people from different cultures inhabit entirely different worlds because of the words used to construct their ideas.

Then from the 1960s through the 1980s, Noam Chomsky and like-minded linguists fought back with the notion of universalism, which contends all languages have the same basic structure and that words are just containers of universally understood concepts.

Today, the issue is far from settled, one way or another. But academics are certain of one thing: You cannot get out of debt simply by changing your name.

In 2002, the board of directors at Winnipeg's Walker Theatre decided the best way to wipe out the heritage building's puddle of red ink was to change its name to the Burton Cummings Theatre.

The plan was relatively simple: They wanted to alter the public perception of the non-profit venue, which many Winnipeggers believed was a private business owned an operated by the man who would later become Winnipeg's mayor.

"Naming the building after Burton was designed to put a new face on the theatre and create some excitement," board president Jack Harper said at the time. "There was a perception it was owned by Sam Katz and that people were making money from it."

The original name-change plan was supposed to come with a fundraising campaign to eliminate what was then a $1.8-million debt and build a $5-million kitty for future renovations. In an unconventional move, singer-songwriter Burton Cummings would raise $1 million of that cash by playing five benefit concerts that were expected to bring in $200,000 each.

At the time, Winnipeg's most famous vocalist (sorry, Neil Young hasn't lived here since the '60s) was reluctant to take on the responsibility.

"I was a little hesitant at first because I'm such an easy target in Winnipeg. I get slammed for everything and I'm sick of it," Cummings said in 2003.

He's right, of course. But the theatre's board members were not. Two benefit concerts featuring Cummings -- in April 2003 and February 2007 -- raised a total of $120,000 for the heritage building.

Since 2002, that $120,000 fundraising figure has been eclipsed by $700,000 worth of government aid -- a figure equal to what the Katz-led Walker Theatre Performing Arts Group shelled out when they purchased what was then called the Odeon Theatre in 1991.

City council handed the theatre $100,000 in 2002, when Glen Murray was still the mayor. The Katz administration then provided $160,000 in debt relief in 2004 and then $220,000 in 2006 and 2007 to help eliminate the debt once and for all. The Doer government also provided $240,000 in debt relief in 2004.

At the same time, the theatre's long-term renovation needs kept mounting and mounting. The structural deficit stood at $7 million in 2007 and may actually be double that figure now due to construction inflation.

In other words, seven years after the structure became the Burton Cummings Theatre, the 102-year-old venue's future remains just as uncertain.

The Walker Theatre, as it was originally known in 1907, deserves a fundraising campaign. Built by Corliss Powers Walker and his wife Harriet, it was among the most ornate theatres in the west and was regarded as a marvel in railway-boom Winnipeg.

It hosted performances or appearances by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Winston Churchill -- as well as a suffrage debate between Nellie McClung and Premier Rodman Roblin -- before the city of Winnipeg seized the building in a tax sale in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression.

The venue became the Odeon Theatre in 1945 and remained a movie house until 1990. In 1991, it was converted back into a live performance stage and reacquired the Walker name.

For historical purposes, it ought to become the Walker Theatre once more. It's time to thank Burton Cummings for his two performances and move on.

If another name change is required, then let's think really big this time and call it the Worldwide Bank of Walker and wait for the deposits to start rolling in. Sapir and Whorf may yet be vindicated.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 4, 2009 F3