“Why do we do that? Why do we do that? We do that to find love. Oh, I love to be in love. Don’t you love to be in love? Ain’t it just great to be in love? Ain’t it wonderful?”

I know. A strange way to begin a review of Stratford Festival‘s sweet and stylistically funny turn on Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, but I couldn’t help myself. I had those immortal lines, spoken so true and magically by the magnificent Bette Midler as she is about to launch into “When A Man Loves a Woman” in the film, “The Rose“, running through my head on repeat as the lights began to dim in the Festival’s intimate 260-seat Studio Theatre. It couldn’t be helped, as this structured tale of love and desire, caught between the head and the heart at strikingly funny odds with one another, rings forward with a blow of air from a gardener trying to bring neat order to the nature of nature. It’s a clever beginning, celebrating the eternal effervescence of the human instinct to find love, while also mocking our structural, logical, and intellectual desire to control that impossible impulse.

Amaka Umeh as Rosaline and Tyrone Savage as Berowne with members of the company in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

As directed with a modernistic approach to love and humor by the inventive Peter Pasyk (Stratford’s Hamlet), Love’s Labour’s Lost plays with our mad attempts, joking at the performative notions when it comes to the matters of the heart, while also giving honor to our instinct to find love. Berowne, played strongly by the engaging Tyrone Savage (Crow’s 15 Dogs) who was recently seen serving up coffee at the Grand Magic, emerges out of the sidelines of this manicured space to become somewhat the play’s lead, giving solid question to King Ferdinand, played royally by Jordin Hall (NAC’s The Neverending Story), and the pact he has created to agree to avoid the female sex for three years. What was he thinking?

The King wants him, and his two fellow scholarly companions, Langaville, played strong by Chris Mejaki, and Dumaine, played true by Chanakya Mukherjee, to sign a demented document that would remove the idea of love and romance from their lives for a period of three years, and replace it with intellectual and undistracted study. Berowne had agreed to this earlier, but he proclaims, at the moment of reckoning, that he had “swore in jest“, as any wise person would, but eventually agrees to agree. They all sign, and dutifully don scholarly white robes to show their unity, courtesy of costume designer Sim Suzer (Shaw’s Everybody), but for what reason, you may ask, does Berowne agree to this? “Why do we do that?” comes back into my head, thanks to the Rose. To find love? Cause we do love to be in love. Or because, quite possibly, he never really believed in his heart of hearts that any of them would be able to honor this ridiculously signed contract. Berowne may be the wisest one of them all. Or is it because he has already found love in the form of Rosaline?

From left: Qianna MacGilchrist as Maria, Celia Aloma as Princess of France, Elizabeth Adams as Katharine, and Amaka Umeh as Rosaline Photo by David Hou.

“I am betrayed!” An understandable framework. You see, arriving soon into this quant land of Navarre (a medieval kingdom that borders Spain and France), just moments after this ridiculous document is signed by the four, there is a royal arrival of the Princess of France, played beautifully by Celia Aloma (Arts Club’s No Child) and her three ladies-in-waiting, Rosaline (Amaka Umeh), Katherine (Elizabeth Adams), and Maria (Gianna MacGilchrist), along with their trusted Boyet (Steve Ross). They show up, looking splendid and colorful, outside the castle gates for a vague diplomatic mission and conference with the King. The question is, how will he do that and fulfill his obligation and signed oath? Well, that’s beyond me, but it is clear they are all going to give it a good, solid, although obviously doomed, try, casting the women out into the fields, yet promising discussion to satisfy their diplomatic mission a wee bit later.

And in typical Shakespearean fashion, love easily enters the room – or should I say, the field, blown in as forcibly as those leaves were blown out by the feisty groundskeeper, Costard, played gloriously well by Wahsontí:io Kirby (Stratford’s Hamlet-911), who steals almost every scene they blow into. Words may fail us when it comes to love, but pheromones never do fail the formulations of desire, especially for Savage’s Berowne and the lustful interaction he has with the fair and fiery Rosaline, played with firecracker feistiness by Amaka Umeh (Stratford’s Hamlet). “I heard your guilty rhyme,” one soul proclaims, and there is no going back, “by heaven“.

Amaka Umeh as Rosaline (centre) with Steve Ross as Boyet (left), Elizabeth Adams as Katharine (rear centre), and Wahsontí:io Kirby as Costard (rear right) Photo by David Hou.

Structured in symmetrical order, void of any chaos and natural wildness, designed impeccably by Julie Fox (Stratford’s R+J) with gentle lighting by Arun Srinivasan (Tarragon’s Cockroach), director Pasyk sends the piece galloping forward like dogs on a hunt, condensing the five-act love comedy into a one-act intermission-less engagement without giving up any of the pleasantries and musical fun. This is thanks to composer and sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne (Factory‘s Wildfire) and choreographer Stephen Cota (Stratford’s Frankenstein Revived), who find plenty to beautifully and distinctly revel in from beginning to end. The framework isn’t the sharpest of stylistic remodeling, feeling lackadaisical and random, feeling somewhat flattened even with the splashes of color and the fine performances bounding about. But the modern approach does enliven these aspects, blurring the lines between artifice and general authenticity within moments of one another, giving way to love and fireman hijinks without ever really missing out on a laugh.

Savage and Umeh ignite the play, and themselves, almost from the get-go, but the flames of love soon envelop all the others quickly and easily as if Ross’s wonderful droll Boyet was singlehandedly ushering Cupid forward into the gleeful mess. Naturally, letters are mislaid, and given to the wrong young lady, while stripper-like costumes and love-identifiers are cross-pollinated to add to the confusion and merriment of all involved. There are leaps over hedges, called-out poetic love-bombs, and layers of comedy ushered forth with dutiful aplomb by a cast that is so magnificently able that the overall effect is far greater than the stylistically challenged rendering.

Christo Graham as Moth (left) and Gordon S. Miller as Don Armado Photo by David Hou.

The Spaniard, Don Armado, played to the high nines by the wonderful Gordon S. Miller (Stratford’s Grand Magic) flexes his comic lisp with determined hilarity. He is matched with equal bits of musical heart, humanity, and humor by the not-so-Herculean Moth, portrayed perfectly by Christo Graham (CS’s Unsafe). The songs burst forth, tenderly and lovingly by a soft falsetto, reminding us all of the melancholy arc that love can bring, as well as the wonder and joy that lives around the corner from it.

Kirby’s comic Costard almost steals the show, mechanically blowing hard letters in all the wrong directions, including in the direction of the playful Jaquenetta, lovingly portrayed by Hannah Wigglesworth (Stratford’s Richard II and Richard III). Michael Spencer-Davis (Grand’s Art), has fun with the fussy schoolmaster Holofernes, as does Matthew Kabwe (CS’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) with his Nathaniel. But it is in the facade of Dull, played exactly as required by the wonderful Jane Spidell (Coal Mine’s The River), where pleasure and performance truly find its bluster, and we couldn’t be more pleased to be dulled by this drumming constable.

“What is love?” the play asks, in song and dance, just like the Rose when she asks her own burning questions about the whys and the hows of love. All we do know is we can’t help ourselves. Because it is great, grand, and absolutely wonderful, even when a document is signed trying to proclaim it away. It enlivens every pore of our being when we do find it and feel it. We don’t need nine worthies to stab us with laughter to know love’s intent. We just need to embrace it when it comes, just like we should with Stratford’s tightened-up and modernized Love’s Labour’s Lost which truly understands that level of joyful engagement. Even if the style that is delivered isn’t as sharply defined as Stratford’s other comic love story, Much Ado About Nothing, a show that gives us everything we could possibly hope for from Shakespeare and the Stratford Festival. Their Love’s Labour’s Lost is just another layer of frosting on an already delicious Festival cake. So go, devour it all, with love. How could you not? Cause, “don’t you love to be in love?” I know I do.

Hannah Wigglesworth as Jaquenetta and Christo Graham as Moth

Stratford Festival‘s Love’s Labour’s Lost runs through October 1 at the Studio Theatre. For information and tickets, click here.

For more go to frontmezzjunkies.com

Studio 180 Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, announced today its 2023/24 Season, which includes the Canadian premiere of the Olivier Award-nominated play Four Minutes Twelve Seconds by James Fritz (Parliament Square; The Flea) as its Mainstage production running at Tarragon Theatre from April 20 to May 12, 2024. The company’s popular Studio Series continues this fall with the first IN DEVELOPMENT readings of two new works-in-progress by award-winning Canadian theatre artists Rebecca Auerbach and Camille Intson.

Studio 180 Co-founder Mark McGrinder will direct James Fritz’s taut, darkly comic, and deeply provocative drama. Four Minutes Twelve Seconds is a thrilling exploration of issues of consent, privilege, and the insidious opportunities new technology offers.

“Our finest work has always found a way of tackling issues through a deeply human lens, and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds is no exception. Fritz’s play functions first and foremost as a thriller, taking audiences on a narrative and emotional journey. It grips from the very first moments and doesn’t let go. Our contemplation of complex topics like toxic masculinity, privacy, and consent is the organic outcome of living in the heightened world of these characters. I can’t wait to share this dark, funny, and engrossing play with audiences and to be a part of the conversations that are sure to follow.”

– Mark McGrinder, Director

The season begins with a launch party and IN DEVELOPMENT reading of Discount Dave and the Fix on October 12 at 7:00 PM at Factory Theatre. Seen on stages across the country, award-winning actor Rebecca Auerbach (The Pigeon King; Your Side, My Side, and the Truth) now brings her powerful story-telling skills to this deeply personal solo show, directed by Aviva Armour-Ostroff (Coal Mine’s The Effect). Auerbach’s first play examines our obsession with celebrity, how addiction can bury our wounds, and what it takes to heal.

PGC Tom Hendry Award-winning playwright Camille Intson (We All Got Lost) joins IN DEVELOPMENT in the winter with her newest play, Death to the Prometheans. The reading will be directed by 2022/23 RBC Emerging Director 郝邦宇 Steven Hao(Tarragon’s Cockroach) and explores youth revolt and resistance, intergenerational teachings, and the quest for knowledge and truth.

Camille Intson and Rebecca Auerbach join Studio 180 as RBC Emerging Playwrights for the season, with Chantelle Han (Tarragon’s Post Democracy) as RBC Emerging Director and Assistant Director on Four Minutes Twelve Seconds.

Learn more about the season at studio180theatre.com.

STUDIO 180 THEATRE’S 2023/2024 SEASON:

FOUR MINUTES TWELVE SECONDS by JAMES FRITZ, directed by MARK McGRINDER

A Studio 180 Mainstage Production

April 20 to May 12, 2024, in the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace

Di and David have devoted their lives to giving their son, Jack, every opportunity they never had. But a startling incident outside the school grounds threatens to ruin everything they’re striving for.
As events begin to accelerate, Di and David begin to question whether they can trust Jack, his closest friends, or even themselves. The Canadian premiere of James Fritz’s taut, darkly comic, and deeply provocative Olivier Award-nominated drama and a thrilling exploration of issues of consent, privilege, and the insidious opportunities new technology offers. “Riveting” – The Times

DISCOUNT DAVE AND THE FIX by REBECCA AUERBACH, directed by AVIVA ARMOUR-OSTROFF October 12, 2023 at Factory Theatre
A Studio 180 IN DEVELOPMENT Reading

When a rockstar crashes a backstage party at a Shakespeare Festival, a thrill-seeking young actor is set on a path of self-reckoning. A provocative blend of truth and fiction, Discount Dave and The Fix is a suspenseful, hilarious, and harrowing examination of our obsession with celebrity, how addiction can bury our wounds, and what it takes to heal.

DEATH TO THE PROMETHEANS by CAMILLE INTSON, directed by 郝邦宇 STEVEN HAO Winter, 2024
A Studio 180 IN DEVELOPMENT Reading

Zinnie, Hannah, John, Thea, and Yannis are five international performing arts students indoctrinated into an elite artistic training program at a(n unspecified) world-leading conservatory, navigating as best they can the perils of young adulthood, institutional demands, and finding purpose in making art in a world on fire. At the same time, in a play-within-a-play, the young Titan Prometheus and his siblings plot an assault against Zeus at his annual sacrificial Blood-Bash, unbeknownst to the rest of the Olympians. But can authority really be challenged from within? How can young people imagine systems of education, governance, and political power outside of that which they were taught? What does it mean to break the shackles of tradition? And, at the end of the world, how much is art really worth?

ABOUT STUDIO 180 THEATRE
Studio 180 Theatre is a Toronto-based company with a mission to engage, provoke, and entertain through dynamic theatre and innovative Beyond The Stageexperiences that delve into social and political issues. Since 2002, Studio 180 Theatre has evolved from an informal artistic collective into one of Toronto’s most respected independent professional theatre companies, expanding to include a robust new play development program and an extensive IN CLASS workshop program with almost 2,000 students annually. The Laramie Project, Stuff Happens, Our Class, Clybourne Park, The Normal Heart, The Nether, Oslo, Indecent, and The Chinese Ladyare among the many plays we have produced in the past twenty years.

The seagulls squawk and cry out overhead, drawing us down into the sunkissed scene of striped umbrellas and beach chairs. We bathe in its warm glow, happily, as we take in the lux surroundings of the beautiful seaside Hotel Metropole, waiting, alongside all the other well-heeled vacationers for the arrival of tonight’s entertainment. It’s Grand Magic that is about to arrive, but questions about the man at its center swirl around like those seagulls up above. Is it something far greater than some fancy card tricks? Or are we being misled; tricked down a fool’s road to believe or maybe imagine the unimaginable? Surrender to our instincts, we are instructed, but is that really the game or is there some other twist waiting for the applause multiplier to enliven the moment and the man?

Gordon S. Miller (left) as Calogero Di Spelta and Geraint Wyn Davies as Otto Marvuglia with Andrew Robinson as Waiter in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

Standing firm and unshakable (or so we at first believe), the arrogant and dismissive Calogero, played to perfection by the impressive Gordon S Miller (Crow’s A&R Angels), fights with that idea, at least in the beginning. Accompanied by his unhappy captive wife Marta, beautifully embodied by Beck Lloyd (Stratford’s R+J), Calogero barely can contain his disregard for the main magical attraction; but even more so for all those guests who gather, playing cards and gossiping about all that approaches and surrounds them.

Lucky for us all, we don’t have to wait too long for the main event; the grand magician, Otto Marvuglia, magically portrayed by Geraint Wyn Davies (LCT’s King Lear), to arrive. And with a flourish, he saunters in, dressed to impress, thanks to the talented work of costume designer Francesca Callow (Stratford’s Three Tall Women), flinging his hat and walking stick around like magical acrobats overhead. We can’t help ourselves. We must lean it, wondering what tricks Otto and his spectacularly feisty wife, Zaira, magnificently portrayed by Sarah Orenstein (Stratford’s Wolf Hall), have in store for us. But more so, will we be able to see the trick inside playwright Eduardo De Filippo’s gorgeously rendered Grand Magic at the Stratford Festival‘s intimate Tom Patterson Theatre.

From left: Sarah Orenstein as Zaira Marvuglia, Jamie Mac as Evening Waiter, and Geraint Wyn Davies as Otto Marvuglia in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

Although unknown to me, playwright De Filippo is considered by many as one of the most important Italian artists and playwrights of the 20th century and the author of many theatrical dramas staged and directed by the man himself. La grande magia(1948), renamed Grand Magic by co-adaptors John Murrell and the play’s dramaturge Donato Santeramo, is the third of De Filippo’s plays that have been staged at the Stratford Festival by the artistic director, Antoni Cimolino (Stratford’s Macbeth) who digs, with grand determination, into the luminous artifice with a magic all his own. It breaks through the walls of our perception, as we watch with glee, playing with philosophical ideals of time and reality under a magician’s cloak of manipulation and deceit. It’s clever in its construction, and captivating in the ultimate unraveling, as we watch a fascinating game played perfectly to the highest level of inventiveness, or possible insanity, questioning faith and reality at every turn. But to what end?

The game begins with an outward deliberate flourish of gifts and refreshments, and an internal deceptive dance led by a few pretend-hotel-guest accomplices, portrayed purposefully by the always good Steve Ross (Stratford’s Chicago) as Gervasio; and a father and daughter team, Arturo and Amelia Tuddei, played a bit too dramatically by David Collins (Stratford’s The Tempest) and Qianna MacGilchrist (Stratford’s Hamlet-911) [in a part usually portrayed by Germaine Konji]. But the core of the ultimate con is dispatched more privately, out of sight, in the financial arrangement between the strapped and desperate magician, Otto, and Marta’s determined secret paramour Mariano, dutifully portrayed by Jordin Hall (Driftwood’s Othello) who’s dying to get the unhappily married and pseudo caged Marta away from her jealous husband. Even for fifteen minutes. Or more.

From left: Gordon S. Miller as Calogero Di Spelta, Emilio Vieira as Brigadiere, and Geraint Wyn Davies as Otto Marvuglia in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

Calogero, as played most miraculously by Miller, is thrown off balance in a heartbeat by the disappearance, but more so because of his own lack of faith; in his wife and his heart. Somehow in that boxed-up struggle, he is caught in a magnificent trap of construction and deception, thanks to the magnificent phrasing of this illustrious playwright. Questioned and challenged by the desperate magician, who sees his own cage’s ceiling dropping fast if he doesn’t think even faster, Calogero becomes enlisted and entangled in a head-tripping construct that plays with his, and our own heads in the most captivating way. It’s a wordplay of formulations, juggling with ideas of time and reality, after Calogero’s wife, Marta, in a trick of corrupted theatricality, somewhat lazily crafted by set and lighting designer Lorenzo Savoini (Soulpepper’s Mother’s Daughter), disappears into the night.

The sets are exacting, beautifully crafted, and expertly designed, don’t get me wrong, with a strong sound design by Ranil Sonnadera (Theatre Aquarius’ The Extinction Therapist) and musical composition by Wayne Kelso (Stratford’s The Rez Sisters) adding to the appeal of the seaside, but I guess I was hoping for a bit more actual magic here, and throughout the play from magic consultant, David Ben. Not just the emotional fragrance of magic. But real awe-inspiring magic. Marta steps out from inside the locked trick, clear as day, void of any vanishing flash, leaving the sarcophagus, the hotel, and her husband all behind in a hilariously played-out boat ride to Venice with her pleased lover. But what she leaves behind is a complication, worthy of some intellectual magic to make right. Otto hears the boat motoring off into the distance and realizes, quite rightly, that he has to play an instantaneous game of dangerous deception. Or else something more dangerous could happen, so he has to play it well and for the long haul. He has no choice, but maybe, somehow, it will help him rise up out of his financial troubles, at least until he can manipulate his way out the other side of his own personal sarcophagus.

Members of the company in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

Otto, as played most spectacularly by Wyn Davies, in a mad creation of metaphysical wordplay, convinces Calogero that Marta, after vanishing, has been caught, trapped within an adorned small box waiting for her release, very much like the marital enclosed space she just ran away where she was literally locked up in her room inside a marriage by her husband. Otto tells Calogero that Marta will only be released and returned to him if he opens the box with a strong believing heart and soul in her fidelity and faith. A clutched aspect and angle that takes the jealous husband by surprise and gives him pause. A pause that lasts years and years in tortured psychic constipation.

De Filippo’s Grand Magic doesn’t disappoint, even with its tiny amount of actual magic being performed. It is filled to the brim with clever manipulations and some very entertaining characters and complications unpacking roundabout ideas that captivate and enliven the material. In particular, one sharply performed roll of the dice enhances the momentum with astounding efficiency in the form of a strongly enacted policeman, hilariously portrayed by the amazing Emilio Vieira (RMTC’s The Three Musketeers) who arrives in a fantastically funny flurry, giving clever depth and delivering delight to the magician and all those who might accuse. Otto’s wife, as portrayed by Orenstein, is also a hat trick of the highest order, delivering lusty and withering lines that invigorate the air around her, and give greater depth to a part that could have easily vanished into thin air.

Geraint Wyn Davies (left) as Otto Marvuglia and Emilio Vieira as Brigadiere in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

But these are just two fine examples in a cast overflowing with daft and delicious frivolity, giving the utmost entertaining pleasure to all that stay tuned into the way we all can deceive our own selves if it serves us. The play overflows with frameworks and angles to appreciate all that stride across the stage, even when some of those scenarios, especially the sad sick tale of Arturo’s young daughter, and her love of little purple flowers, feel somewhat unneeded and overstuffed. Much like the arrival of Calogero’s intruding greedy family.

Members of the company in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

Grand Magic is being performed at Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatreuntil 29 September. The Festival runs until 29 October.

Sarah Orenstein (left) as Zaira Marvuglia and Geraint Wyn Davies as Otto Marvuglia with members of the company in Grand Magic. Stratford Festival 2023. Photo by David Hou.

For more go to frontmezzjunkies.com

“Definitely, a lot to unpack here,” says one soul to another as Crow’s Theatre‘s magnificently tuned-in production of The Master Plan, gets underway, diving deep and hilariously into the corporate politics and City Hall antics with the sharpest of wit and wonder. Based around the Globe and Mail reporter Josh O’Kane’s nonfiction book ‘Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy‘, this captivatingly funny, smart play spins a strongly focused web around a slice of Torontonian history that I had completely missed out on – I guess it didn’t make its way down to NYC. But I sure wish it had.

Adapted most brilliantly into a fiercely funny play by Michael Healey (The Drawer Boy; Generous, Courageous, and Proud), the fantastically fictionalized non-fiction story dives headfirst into some captivating city developmental processing that both signifies all that is right, and most wrong in Canadian politics and public office dynamics. In a way, it sounded sorta educational and possibly stiff, going in, but as unwound here by this most excellent team of theatre makers, it certainly made me lean in and listen, in a way that one of the characters, even though he claims to be “a listener” never actually seems to. Yet, as the structuring and the history begin to unravel before our very eyes, the sordid tall wooden tale certainly is one that pulls you in most happily.

I must admit I didn’t know much about it all; that time when Google, by way of its Sidewalk Labs division, tried with all its mighty might to buy and develop a parcel of land sandwiched way down between the lake and the Gardiner Expressway. It was a slice of Toronto waterfront land that was seen, at least by the Waterfront Toronto organization, as an exciting place to develop and experiment with an idea for a better place to live; a carbon-negative neighbourhood and a “city of the future,” based on a progressive idealized tech-dream filled with affordable housing and state-of-the-art efficiency. But the partnership was a complex one, made clear from the get-go by the way a slick Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, played strong and stompy by Mike Shara (Canadian Stage’s Take Me Out), moves around the space with a dismissive, and untrustworthy loud air. Standing in as the symbolic figurehead of one of the largest conglomerates in the world, Google (which is wonderfully unpacked for us in an avalanche of facts and names by a tree – more on that later) was never going to engage cooperatively with the Canadian system of doing things, as “adorable” and confusingly difficult as it is. Dan, and the company, were always going to try to bulldoze their way through the system, just like Dan proudly explains he did in NYC. So why wouldn’t it work here as well, Dan believes.

(l-r) Philippa Domville, Ben Carlson, Mike Shara, Christopher Allen, and Tara Nicodemo in Crow’s Theatre’s The Master Plan. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

The doomed-from-day-one fiasco all began optimistically in 2017 when that small parcel of long-forsaken land on the city’s underdeveloped lakeshore was made available for development and Google co-founder Larry Page and his chairman Eric Schmidt saw an opening. The two began to lean in and pitch a progressive idea through the framework of Sidewalk Labs for the property, and with the pushy and determined Doctoroff as the urban-planning company’s CEO, profit and power were seen written in the future. Sidewalk’s bid dutifully crushed the competition, as seen in the dynamically presented and played-out Master Plan contest. But as soon as that initial bid was won, the team building between Doctoroff and the determined Waterfront Toronto’s team started to evaporate in a cultural power play that left a P.R. gap that was soon filled in with public fear and outspoken suspicion.

The partnership, as you can well imagine, didn’t go as planned. And as the systematic story of corporate greed slammed itself full force into this country’s governmental structuring, The Master Plan finds its fantastic formula in the outrageous details and dynamics that brought this short-lived partnership to its untimely and ultimate deathbed. Thank god, I imagine, as the play, brilliantly directed by Chris Abraham (Crow’s Uncle Vanya, Stratford’s Much Ado About Nothing), continues most fantastically forward, the unraveling is filled to the brim with humourous takes on so many aspects and absurdities of Toronto and this country, with sharply focused lines being dutifully delivered by the play’s most excellent cast. There isn’t a bad egg in the group, donning numerous hats of extraordinary personas to document and deliver O’Kane’s detailed account of this disaster. And what a ride it is.

Narrated, to great effect, by a surprisingly talkative tree, portrayed with a clever disposition by Peter Fernandes (Crow’s Fifteen Dogs), the painfully funny and well-crafted battle to reel in the hungry power-seeking of Sidewalk Labs has deep roots in its structuring, setting up the city’s ultimate failure of futuristic urban development carefully and with humorous determination. Formated cleverly by set and props designer Joshua Quinlan (Stratford’s Casey and Diana), with a spectacular assist by costume designer Ming Wong (Bad Hats’ Alice in Wonderland), lighting designer Kimberly Purtell (Crow’s The Chinese Lady), sound designer Thomas Ryde Payne (Crow’s Red Velvet), and video designer Amelia Scott (Porte Parole’s The Assembly), the play’s commission, rooted in real-life political unravelings, finds and delivers the ridiculous and the arrogance with the clearest of clever strokes. The broadcast streamings of executives and bureaucrats, filmed and refocused on screens around the doomed Quayside project, roll out as tearfully brilliant as what the young Sidewalk designer Cam Malagaam, touchingly portrayed by the excellent Christopher Allen (Tarragon’s Redbone Coonhound), has to say in his dynamically delivered utopian speech that ultimately gives the project, and the whole piece, its strongly felt emotional heart and soul.

Ben Carlson and Peter Fernandes in Crow’s Theatre’s The Master Plan. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

And when the resigning texts start coming in, alarmingly one after the other, detailing the conflictual unraveling of the project, it is the team at Waterfront Toronto; Philippa Domville (Tarragon’s If We Were Birds) as Meg Davis, Tara Nicodemo (Planet 88’s Cringeworthy) as Kristina Verner, Ben Carlson (Stratford’s Richard III) as Will Fleissig, and Yanna McIntosh (Obsidian’s Ruined) as Helen Burstyn, Waterfront Toronto’s board chair, that elevate the frenetic moment that is at the core. Domville and Nicodemo are particularly blazingly good, holding their own most powerfully against that “drunk baby with a pistol“; i.e. the corporate clowns of Sidewalk Labs.  They fight and smash their literal faces into cake in the hope of staying true to their, possibly too grandiose idea of formulating and building something unheard of, brilliant, clever, and new, much like, pretty much, everything about this production of The Master Plan, which is high praise, indeed.

With director Abraham’s smashingly good cast unleashing their excellence all over those finely crafted and hilarious lines, the show revels in its comedy underpinning, rolling out sharply defined quips, like John Tory’s bad French, that, to be honest, flew over my head in their referential tone. Sometimes the formulation is a bit too busy, loading and unloading wooden models over and over again, for seemingly no solid referential purpose, but the quips and the jabs made me laugh even if I wasn’t tuned in to the factual landscape they were built upon. The play engulfs, creates, enlivens, and excites, mainly because of the clever delivery of the equally clever play. But at its core, it’s the tightness of its structural formulations that sold me on The Master Planat Crow’s Theatre, Toronto.

Mike Shara and Ben Carlson in Crow’s Theatre’s The Master Plan. Photo by Dahlia Katz.

The Master Plan runs at Crow’s Theatre until October 8. For information and tickets, click here.

For more go to frontmezzjunkies.com

The John W. Engeman Theater’s production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical opened and T2C Genevieve Rafter Keddy was there to capture the moment.

Stephanie Lynne Mason

Stephanie Lynne Mason

Stephanie Lynne Mason

The Cast of Beautiful

The Cast of Beautiful

Laura Leigh Carroll and Devon Goffman

Noah Berry

Noah Berry, Stephanie Lynne Mason and Sarah Ellis

Stephanie Lynne Mason and Sarah Ellis

From the chart-topping hits she wrote for the biggest acts in music to her own life-changing success with Tapestry, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical takes you back to where it all began–and takes you on the ride of a lifetime. Featuring such unforgettable classics as “You’ve Got a Friend”, “One Fine Day”, “So Far Away”, and many more. This Tony and Grammy Award-winning show is filled with the songs you  remember and a story you’ll never forget.

Stephanie Lynne Mason

The cast of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical features Stephanie Lynne Mason as  Carole King (Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof; Off-Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish; National  Tours: Million Dollar Quartet; Regional: George Street Playhouse, Wallis Center, Virginia Musical Theater)

Noah Berry

Noah Berry as Barry Mann (National Tour: Spamalot, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story; Regional:  Highlands Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, Maples Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Memorial Hall)

Jack Cahill-Lemme

Jack Cahill-Lemme, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Sarah Ellis and Noah Berry

Jack Cahill-Lemmeas Gerry Goffin (Broadway: Moulin Rouge! The Musical; National Tour: Moulin  Rouge! The Musical; Regional: North Shore Music Theatre, The Marriott Theatre, Timberlake Playhouse;  The Rev; Film/ TV: “FLOATS”)

Sarah Ellis ad Brad Putz

Sarah Ellis as Cynthia Weil (Engeman: Million Dollar Quartet;  National Tour: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder; Regional: The Gateway Playhouse, Stages St.  Louis, Gena Theatre, Ogunquit Playhouse)

Devon Goffman as Don Kirshner (National Tour:  Jersey Boys, On Your Feet, Motown, Titanic, Grease, Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story; Regional: Virginia  Repertory Theatre, Dodger Theatricals, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; Film/TV: “Law & Order Organized  Crime”).

Cory Simmons, Dwayne Washington, Damien DeShaun Smith and Leron Wellington

Justin Waite, Cory Simmons, Dwayne Washington, Damien DeShaun Smith and Leron Wellington

Damien DeShaun Smith

Dwayne Washington

Cory Simmons

Leron Wellington

Zuri Washington

Zuri Washington, Renee Marie Titus, Cece Morin, Cecily Dionne Davis and Alaysia Renay Duncan

Renee Marie Titus

Laura Leigh Carroll

Cece Morin

Alaysia Renay Duncan

Sean Widener and Renee Marie Titus

Cecily Dionne Davis

Jillian Worthing

Justin Waite

Justin Waite and Leron Wellington

Justin Waite, Cece Morin and Leron Wellington

Cece Morin and Leron Wellington

Devon Goffman

Devon Goffman and Jack Cahill-Lemme

Joe Caskey

Jack B. Murphy

Sean Widener

Kate Coffey

Katie Goffman and Devon Goffman

Julia Bogdanoff

Justin Waite and Jeff Cox

Devon Goffman and Paul Stancato

Paul Stancato and Zuri Washington

Leron Wellington and Paul Stancato

Leron Wellington and Zuri Washington

The Band that includes Jeff Cox (Musical Director), Nathan Dame, Lucas Colon, Joel Levy, Bob Dalpiaz, Matthew Herman, Russell Brown, Teddy Motz and Jim Waddell

Sarah Ellis, Noah Berry, Paul Stancato, Jack Cahill-Lemme and Stephanie Lynne Mason

Zuri Washington, Renee Marie Titus, Cece Morin, Paul Stancato, Cecily Dionne Davis and Alaysia Renee Duncan

Dwayne Washington, Renee Marie Titus, Justin Waite, Zuri Washington, Cece Morin, Damien DeShaun Smith, Leron Wellington, Alaysia Renay Duncan, Cory Simmons and Cecily Dionne Davis

Paul Stancato joins Dwayne Washington, Renee Marie Titus, Justin Waite, Zuri Washington, Cece Morin, Damien DeShaun Smith, Leron Wellington, Alaysia Renay Duncan, Cory Simmons and Cecily Dionne Davis

Justin Waite, Kate Coffey, Alaysia Renay Duncan and Sean Widener

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is directed and choreographed by Paul Stancato (Engeman Theater: The Scarlet Pimpernel, A Bronx Tale, Aida, In the Heights, Grease, Jekyll & Hyde,  Sound of Music, Hairspray; National Tours: The Wedding Singer, Disney’s The Lion King, Flashdance The  Musical, Jekyll and Hyde; Off-Broadway: Friends! The Musical Parody, ROCKSHOW, Happy 50-ish;  Regional: Drury Lane Chicago, The Public Theater Joe’s Pub, Timber Lake Playhouse, Grand Ole Opry,  Palm Beach Dramaworks & The Mint Theater).

The Cast and Creative of Beautiful The Carole King Musical