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You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby

By Johnnie Walker


It’s almost August, and some of us know that means it’s almost SummerWorks. The juried theatre festival has taken a bit of a different turn this year, under the new artistic leadership of Michael Rubenfeld, and is branching out into music and performance art. In a shockingly tech-savvy move for the Toronto theatre community, it also has a blog. Last week, the blog started posting viral videos, including one where veteran Canadian actor/playwright Michael Healey yells for someone to “fuck his wide ass,” and the video featured in this post, titled “Expression.” In the video, playwrights Hannah Moscovitch, Tara Beagan, Claudia Dey, Rose Laborde, and Linda Griffiths discuss the travails of being “hot playwrights.” The video, which culminates in a pillow fight, has already sparked a comments war on the fest’s blog about its feminist implications.
What do you think, gentle Torontoist reader? Is the video a sexist throw-back? A sassy send-up? A clever marketing trick? A pretentious inside joke? More importantly, which shows are you planning to see?

Comments

  • deadrobot

    Jesus Christ, when my father sees that video of my brother yelling “fuck my wide ass…” it will be therapy for years.
    So far both “viral” vids are comedy bits. Probably the hardest kind of sell you can direct to hyper sensitive theatre lovin’ types. Someone was bound to miss the joke that these extremely intelligent women are acting like a Girls Gone Wild audition.
    Therein lies the over-thought “viral” nugget.

  • antiboy

    It doesn’t really make much of a comment though. Are Girls Gone Wild-type playwrights a huge problem? I didn’t know such beings existed. If so, then I guess the satire really gives it to them but… to the average viewer, it doesn’t say much.