When telling the story of the Holocaust, one effective way to overcome our sheer inability to comprehend the scope and scale of such atrocities is to zoom in on one or two stories: share one particular experience, in all its brutal specificity, and we have at least a small way into the event—the small details illuminate the larger whole.

One theatre company from the Netherlands, Hotel Modern, takes a related approach in KAMP (CAMP). The production depicts a typical day at the Auschwitz concentration camp, but instead of zooming in into a closeup, it shrinks everything down, literally, into miniature. It’s the accumulation of thousands of small details that has the impact in this case.

DIRECTED BY MATTHEW POND AND KIRK MARCOLINA (USA, World Showcase)

SCREENINGS:

Friday, April 26, 7 p.m.
Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond Street West)

Sunday, April 28, 4 p.m.
ROM Theatre (100 Queens Park)

Wednesday, May 1, 1:30 p.m.
Scotiabank Theatre (259 Richmond Street West)

Like so many young girls, Doris Payne wanted to be a ballerina when she was young. Unfortunately, at the time, racial barriers wouldn’t allow women of colour to dance in the prestigious ballet companies of the world. So she found another way of supporting herself, and, eventually, her two kids: jewel theft.

At 81 years old, Doris Payne has stolen a total of $2 million worth of diamonds and jewellery (that she admits to), but a recent robbery has her facing five years in prison, a jail sentence that would in effect be a death sentence as well. This documentary looks at Payne—now living in a halfway home, where her health is declining in tandem with her bank account—and her life as a thief.

Payne is a feisty character, and her interviews make it easy to believe she conned, sweet-talked, and slipped her way past authorities for over 60 years. Her concerned best friend Jean is also charming. But in the end, court cases don’t make for stunning visual storytelling, and the directors overcompensate by adding in cheesy shots of jewels and dramatizations that look like ’80s glamour shots in motion. And though the film makes an effort to turn Payne into a sympathetic character, she never gets there. The audience knows from the get-go that the con is on.

Dolls by Viktor&Rolf will be on display at the ROM as part of Luminato 2013. Photo by Peter Stigter.

2012 was Jorn Weisbrodt’s coming out as a major player in Canada’s artistic community. It was his inaugural year as the artistic director of Luminato, the annual “festival of ideas and creativity.” He was the face of the event, but most of the programming decisions had been made well before he took over. The 2013 edition, as Luminato CEO Janice Price pointed out at today’s lineup announcement at the Sony Centre, is the first festival created 100 per cent under Weisbrodt’s supervision.

As far as changes go, first off, plain old “Luminato” is now “Luminato Festival.” The signature blue background on the publicity materials has been swapped out for a palette of pastel rectangles. Weisbrodt called the new colours “childlike,” which he says represents the way good art should make one feel—like a child experiencing a new sight, thought, or feeling for the first time. Whereas he compared last year’s festival to a storm crash-landing in downtown Toronto, the 2013 festival, which runs from June 14 to June 23, is more like a playground, with its heavier elements offset by more lighthearted projects.

Some of this year’s programming had already been announced, like The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, a biographical theatrical production directed by Bob Wilson (who is returning to Luminato after presenting Einstein on the Beach last year) starring Willem Dafoe and Abramovic, the renowned performance artist, herself. Also previously announced were the Atom Egoyan–directed Chinese opera Feng Yi Ting, Mark Morris’s acclaimed dance show L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and Joni: A Portrait in Song, a tribute concert in honour of Joni Mitchell’s 70th birthday, featuring Glen Hansard, Rufus Wainwright, and Chaka Khan.

But today we heard more details about other elements of this year’s Luminato Festival.

For one thing, Luminato has a new partner in the New York Times, which will pair several of its journalists, like John Rockwell and Jon Pareles, with artists, like Atom Egoyan and Bob Wilson, for on-stage interviews. Also, the festival’s usual literary schedule is being revamped into a Literary Picnic in Trinity Bellwoods Park—a “book reading meets music festival” kind of thing. Toronto book lovers and aspiring writers can arrive with a blanket and food (or get something from the food trucks nearby) and a basket of used books, and can even sign up for one-on-one talks with several authors. Some writers attending will be Stacey May Fowles, Camilla Gibb, Daniel Karasik, Heather Birrell, Vincent Lam, Sheila Heti, Jessica Westhead, Lisa Moore, and Michael Winter. Weather permitting, this could be the highlight of the whole festival.

Another unexpected twist coming in 2013 is the food program. Luminato is transforming its 1000 Tastes of Toronto (arguably the 2012 festival’s most popular event) into Future Tastes of Toronto: At the Kids’ Table. Instead of Toronto restaurants showcasing their own food, 25 chefs will partner with students from grades four to six to create dishes they will sell for $5 each during the festival’s opening weekend.

Likewise, more “play” is coming to Luminato’s visual programming, including Dolls by Viktor&Rolf, at the Royal Ontario Museum, which will line a catwalk with porcelain dolls wearing miniature versions of outfits by designers Viktor&Rolf. Also bound to be entertaining is Stockpile, which will happen at Brookfield Place. A piece of performance art born out of Weisbrodt’s desire to lock a bunch of Canadian artists in a room together until they all agreed on an idea, the installation is described as “a life-sized rendering of the arcade-style claw machine game,” where the prizes will be objects donated by Torontonians, and the artists will act as the claw.

A different kind of “play” will unfold once the sun sets and Luminato’s beefed-up after-hours programming takes over. A highlight will be legendary Canadian puppeteer Ronnie Burkett’s The Daisy Theatre. Burkett has created an ensemble of 35 marionettes for nightly performances that will consist of improvisation, music, monologues, and new short plays by Daniel MacIvor, Brad Fraser, Anusree Roy, Chris Craddock, and Amy Lee Lavoie. The show will be staged at the Berkeley Street Theatre, along with Jason Collett’s The Courtyard Revue series, which will present a nightly surprise “wedding band” to accompany a lively dance party. (This is inspired by his successful Basement Revue at the Dakota Tavern.) Also part of Luminato’s late-night programming will be Kid Koala’s Space Cadet, a concert experienced through headphones and custom scents. And look out for British-German art collective Gob Squad and their guerrilla filmmaking project, Super Night Shot.

For Luminato 2013′s complete lineup, visit the festival’s website.

Toronto is a popular destination for American online poker players no longer able to work in their hometowns.

Almost exactly two years ago, on the morning of April 15, 2011, Mazin (he prefers to keep his last name private) got out of bed to find that his roommate was already queuing up for his computer. Shortly after, another friend from nearby dropped in. Online poker was a hobby they all shared, though Mazin, then a 20-year-old computer engineering student at North Carolina State University, had begun to take it more seriously. He arranged his schedule so that he only had 12 hours of class a week, two of which were online, so that he could spend more time on his laptop playing on PokerStars.com, the largest online poker room in the world. He won’t say how much exactly, but it did provide him with “a comfortable living.”

“Uh, guys? Is this a problem?” Mazin’s roommate said when a banner popped up on PokerStars’s website, advising that games were no longer available in the United States. Mazin didn’t worry too much at first—he thought maybe PokerStars would have to change its domain to a .EU address. But on further inspection, they realized it wasn’t the domain, it was their physical location that was the problem. On that morning of April 15, 2011, also known as Black Friday, online poker players across America lost the capacity to make financial transactions at online poker sites. Professional players were suddenly left without a source of income. All of them, professional or not, were left without access to their online accounts, many of which held significant portions of their net worth.

Since then, many of those players have relocated to Toronto.

“I’ve been involved in the poker business for a long time, as a journalist and also as a consultant to the big companies, so anything that’s coming you tend to have at least some advance notice of it,” said Chris Tessaro, host of The Poker Show on Sportsnet Radio Fan590. This wasn’t the case with the United States government’s decision to charge the three biggest online poker sites (PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/UltimateBet) with bank fraud, illegal gambling, and money laundering. “Nobody knew this was coming until it happened. Nobody knew. It was just an instant, hard slam lock down.”

The way Tessaro describes it, Black Friday resulted in war-like pandemonium in the poker world, with no word about when, or if, players would be seeing the money in their poker accounts again. And Toronto suddenly became a life-saving destination.

“People started weighing their options…a lot of the online grinders went back to their regular real lives, got real jobs, and stopped playing poker. And the rest had to move somewhere in order to ply their trade,” said Tessaro. As a well-known name in the poker industry who was also based in Toronto, he was instantly flooded with requests from friends to help them make the move, and fast. “It was a crazy situation.”

Canada was and continues to be an obvious choice for many poker players urgently needing to cross borders, with its geographical and cultural proximity to the United States. Within Canada, there are two major communities of expatriated online poker players: Vancouver, and Toronto. Shortly after Black Friday, Mazin turned 21 and traveled to Las Vegas to play in a live poker tournament, then made the trip to Toronto to meet a friend already living on Brunel Court, right beside the Rogers Centre.

“I really liked Toronto, but for me, it was an experience because I’ve never really lived in a big city of any sort. Just to be able to walk out the door and walk to anything I could think of was awesome to me. We didn’t have a car or anything, but you didn’t need one,” Mazin said. He and his friends were comparatively lucky: because they had been using PokerStars, they wound up getting their money back in a matter of weeks. On the one year anniversary of Black Friday, Full Tilt Poker still owed its users $300 million, and Absolute Poker/UltimateBet owed $60 million. (Full Tilt Poker was eventually declared a “Ponzi-style scheme, and was bought by PokerStars, which had its charges dropped.)

As a 20-something with no commitments and a clear schedule, Mazin decided to seize the opportunity and see more of the world. Since spending July and August in Toronto in 2011, he relocated to Costa Rica, and again, about a month ago, to Vancouver. “There aren’t a lot of professions you can have at 22 where you can be anywhere in the world, as long as it’s not the States, and if you have your laptop with you you can make a decent living,” he said.

It’s typical for online poker players to move around a lot, according to Kristin Wilson, founder of Poker Refugees, a service that facilitates relocation for online poker players, which officially launched in August 2011. Since then, Wilson has moved 230 players, including Mazin, everywhere from Canada to Panama to Malta. In the couple of years since Black Friday happened, she has noticed a “snowbird” trend, where players will head south for the winter and then back north for summer.

Wilson says she has moved about 20 clients to Toronto, but suspects that number is low because many are able to make the jump without her help. Take Dan Smith for example, a Maryland native who got his start online and was ranked the number one poker player in the world in 2012. He’s now living on Queen West, and even as the U.S. gets closer and closer to re-establishing online poker gambling, he’d be hesitant to leave.

“I’m incredibly happy in Toronto. Even if poker came back, I’d still enjoy spending lots of time here…I have a bunch of friends here. It’s a bit expensive, but besides that I’m really happy with everything that Toronto has to offer,” Smith said. Mazin is also in no rush to return to the States, though he visits about every four months, and says he’s open to being in Toronto again.

Toronto’s community of expatriated online poker players mostly remains quiet in the press, since many would prefer to remain anonymous for tax or immigration purposes. But there are some, like Smith, who proudly make a living in their adopted hometown. The presence of this community doesn’t necessarily mean that Toronto’s professional poker enthusiasts will flock to a Toronto casino, should we choose to permit one.

“They all know casino games are a bad bet, pardon the pun,” Tessaro said. “Some might play blackjack because it’s fun, not to make money. They know statistically the house always wins.”

A promotional still for Daniel MacIvor’s Arigato, Tokyo. Photo by Tanja-Tiziana Burdi.

Brendan Healy has had the role of artistic director at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre since 2009, and according to an open letter he released today, these are some bad times indeed.

It’s no secret that many of Toronto’s theatre companies have seen the numbers of paying customers coming through their doors shrink over the last few years. Companies have had to adjust in response—a process known euphemistically as “right-sizing.” But when the artistic director of one of Toronto’s most iconic companies—which Buddies In Bad Times, “the largest facility-based queer theatre company in the world,” definitely is—has to write a letter to the citizens of Toronto (theatre-going or not) expressing his surprise at low attendance for a new play from one of Canada’s most acclaimed and accomplished playwrights (Daniel MacIvor’s Arigato, Tokyo, in this instance), there’s a problem. ADs are not usually ones to admit a show, especially one they’ve directed themselves, isn’t performing up to their expectations in the box office.

Healy is funny, open, and embarrassingly honest and humble when it comes to his leadership role at Buddies, so we suspect this letter doesn’t come out of anger or condescension (but take from it what you will). It doesn’t speculate on the causes of the low turnout. Instead, it asks readers to participate in a survey that Healy hopes will help the company understand what’s keeping people away.

Healy’s high opinion of the play isn’t shared by everyone. Arigato, Tokyo has received very mixed reviews, from glowing, to puzzled. One reviewer called it “a low point.” (This writer thought Healy’s direction was stunning.) But in any case, such a statement from one of Toronto’s major artistic voices, about one of Canada’s major artistic fields, is something we thought should be brought to your attention. Here’s the full text of the letter:

Dear Buddies Patron and Supporter,

I am writing this as an act of transparency.

As you may know, we are currently running Daniel MacIvor’s newest play Arigato, Tokyo until April 14th. I am very proud of this production. It represents a bold and exciting departure in Daniel’s writing and I am deeply honoured that one of our country’s greatest living playwrights entrusted us with the responsibility of realizing this latest phase in his oeuvre. Audience and critical feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I truly believe that this production figures among the finest that our company has ever produced.

Despite this, our houses have been disappointingly low. I would even say “shockingly” low for such a critically lauded production by a writer of Daniel’s stature. They are low in such a way that we are scratching our heads and asking some very serious questions.

I took the helm of Buddies four years ago following a time of great crisis for the company. Prior to my arrival, the company had been forced to cancel shows and it had lost the trust of many of you. Since then, we have been working hard to provide you with theatrical experiences that are contemporary and challenging but that also live up to a high standard of artistic excellence. In many ways, these efforts have paid off: the company is financially solid, our shows have received numerous accolades and awards, and there is a general consensus that Buddies is an important cultural force in the city. And still, show after show, we continuously struggle to get people to come.

I am aware that this is an industry-wide phenomenon. We are hardly the only theatre in town faced with this problem. In fact, I recently participated in a historic meeting between several of the artistic directors in the city to discuss this critical issue. We all recognize that these are exceedingly challenging times for the arts in Canada.

This leads me to the purpose of this email. We are currently engaged in developing a 10-year strategic plan for the company. We want Buddies to have a thriving future to look forward to. But, in order to do so, we need to understand what obstacles are keeping audiences away from our shows. As part of this strategic planning process, we are currently conducting a survey of our patrons. This survey is an opportunity for us to get to know you better and gather some valuable feedback on our programming and communications. I ask that you to please find a few minutes to fill out our online survey by clicking here. The data collected from this survey will play an important role in helping us figure out what we need to do in order to keep Buddies a relevant and dynamic theatre company.

Furthermore, I urge you to please come to Arigato, Tokyo. We only have ten shows left. Attending our productions is truly the best way to express your support. As always, feel free to share your thoughts about the production with us. We care deeply about our audience and your feedback is invaluable.

Thank you for your time and continued support of Buddies.

Sincerely,

Brendan Healy

Beloved Queen East watering hole The Avro will pour its last pint on April 26, 2013.

Well, it certainly lived up to its name. Ask the residents of Riverdale and Leslieville, and they’ll say The Avro is considered to be an example of the ideal small business in the neighbourhood—locally owned, supportive of other community projects and events, inviting, friendly, wholly invested in its customers and neighbours, and peddling a quality product as well. But yesterday, the bar’s Facebook page posted the headline “The Avro Project Cancelled Again,” swiftly and abruptly ending its successful nearly-three-year run as a community leader, meeting place, and drinking hole before its time.

Also like its namesake, the decision is sparking some outrage.

“Like the historic Avro airplane, we must give way to foreign imposition before our time,” the announcement reads.”Thank you to the countless people, friends, neighbours and local business owners we’ve met, and for all the support you have given throughout our three remarkable years. We hope the spirit The Avro endeavoured to cultivate will live on in the east, and that friendships made around our bar will continue to grow beyond our closing.”

There’s no word yet on what is slated to replace The Avro’s space on Queen East, but it likely won’t keep the bar’s signature plaid curtains, costumed mannequins, and chalkboard bathroom walls. So Leslieville and Riverside residents will have one last flight on The Avro on Friday, April 26.

The Avro’s owners, Rachel Conduit and Bruce Dawson, opened the bar in 2010, and by the establishment’s first birthday they had already inspired a wellspring of east end culture. Comedy nights, video-game marathons, live music, letter-writing clubs, community gardens, toboggan and bike rides, and the East End Icon calendar were all initiatives that brought sleepy Riversiders out of their homes and into the neighbourhood. Simply being open until 2 a.m. seven nights a week was revolutionary along Queen East.

But for the past two months, Dawson and Conduit have been involved in a battle with their landlord over a rent hike and noise restrictions. With their three-year lease at its end, Conduit told Torontoist that negotiations ended with The Avro’s landlord asking for a 120 per cent increase and a rule prohibiting music after 11 p.m. (Conduit and Dawson thought a 30 per cent increase would be fair). “They just wanted us out,” Conduit said.

While part of The Avro’s demise seems personal, it comes at a time when Riverside is experiencing one the biggest increases in commercial property-tax assessment values in all of Toronto. The Riverside BIA fears that some local businesses won’t survive. The Avro’s longtime neighbours, LPK’s Culinary Groove and Loic Gourmet, also shut down recently.

“Bruce and I are pretty at peace with it, it has obviously been a couple months of struggling and fighting for it. So through all that, we’re at a good place now and understand this is the way it has to be,” said Conduit, who also owns the bicycle-themed bar Handlebar, which just happens to be located in Kensington Market, another neighbourhood at risk of losing its independent businesses due to rent increases.

And because Conduit and Dawson are now okay with saying goodbye to The Avro, they’re finding themselves being the ones offering a kind shoulder to their customers upset by the news.

“It’s like, ‘Aww, it’s okay!’ ‘Thank you! You’re very sweet’ ‘You’ll find another place!’” Conduit said.

“I was pretty surprised, and very disappointed,” said Morgan McIver about The Avro’s closure. “Everyone knows what Rachel and Bruce do for Riverside and Leslieville. It’s not just a bar making noise. These two are spearheading the changes around this community and making it more of a community.”

McIver has lived directly above the bar for the past two years with her sister, and it was one of the first stops they made after moving to the neighbourhood. “We ended up having the best night ever and met a bunch of people in the area. Even though we haven’t really hung out with those people, it’s still another ‘hello’ on the street.” McIver even has Conduit’s cell phone number in case they need to quiet down, though she has only needed to use it once.

Dana Harrison, who also lives around the corner from The Avro, ran her blog Well-Preserved as a hobby when Conduit convinced her to host a monthly meet-up event at the bar. The popularity of their Home Ec series snowballed into a trend that has since received attention in the United States and Britain.

“She’s the one who helped us push it ahead, and the next thing I know we’ve done it 12 times in a row,” Harrison said. “The conversation always kind of turned to that type of thing when we were sitting around the bar, so it became more of an instigator of other community projects. She was just really inspiring to a lot of other people to get them off their butts and thinking about the whole neighbourhood as a whole, that we’re all a part of one thing.”

Harrison will be moving her events over to Handlebar after their final instalment at The Avro next month. She says she would have preferred to keep it in the neighbourhood, but there isn’t another space suitable for it. Conduit also says that her community activism will continue in Riverside even without a physical space, as a member of the Riverside BIA.

CORRECTION: March 26, 2013, 6:00 PM This post originally said that Riverside is experiencing the highest increase in property tax rates of any neighborhood in Toronto. In fact, the area is experiencing one of the highest rates of commercial property-tax assessment growth. Assessment growth helps the City adjust a property’s taxes, but it’s not the same thing as a tax increase.

Dean Gilmour, Nina Gilmour, Ben Muir, Dan Watson, and Daniel Roberts are a few members of the unfortunate Bundren clan. Photo by Katherine Fleitas.

As I Lay Dying
Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue)
March 8 to 31, 7:30 p.m.
$20–$35

Ching Chong Chinaman
Aki Studio Theatre (585 Dundas Street East)
March 12 to 30, 8 p.m., weekend matinees at 2 p.m.
PWYC–$30

As two plays currently in Toronto theatres demonstrate, family sagas have been around for generations.

At Theatre Passe Muraille, production company Theatre Smith-Gilmour gives William Faulkner’s doomed Bundren clan from the novel As I Lay Dying its first adaptation for the stage, while at the Aki Studio Theatre in the new Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a very contemporary examination of an assimilated Asian family living in California. Each production has its own way of making viewers feel grateful for their time in the theatre, and extremely grateful for their own family lives.

Theatre Smith-Gilmour is first and foremost a family affair, led by the husband-and-wife team Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour. This time around, they’ve placed their daughter Nina in their cast of seven actors who portray the production’s 15 characters. The story follows the Bundren family as they haul the corpse of their matriarch, Addie, 40 miles to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her in her hometown. Father Anse (Dean Gilmour) is a toothless trickster and a tightwad, and Dewey Dell (Nina Gilmour) finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy at 17. Cash (Dan Watson) is the dutiful eldest son. His younger brothers are Darl (Julian DeZotti), the outsider; Jewel, Mom’s favourite (Benjamin Muir); and the young and imaginative Vardaman (Daniel Roberts). But good luck figuring out what their names are without reading them first, because the cast’s inconsistent Southern twang renders about 35 per cent of the script inaudible.

As the audience tries to get used to the dense, accented language of Faulkner’s tale, the beginning of As I Lay Dying gets off to a slow start. When Addie (Smith) finally kicks the can and sets the meat of the plot in motion, the audience finally gets on board with the sprawling, two-and-half-hour-long show. There are some dazzling examples of Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s signature physical theatre. Andre du Toit’s lighting is excellent, particularly during a scene in which Cash, Jewel, and Darl attempt to save Addie’s coffin from being washed downriver. Even so, this epic suffers from inconsistent pacing and a jarringly disruptive fade to black in between each of its short scenes.

The physical performances are mesmerizing, but it’s too bad words dominate so much of the script, leaving the Bundrens stiff and upright instead of exploring the expanse of the stage. Dean Gilmour, however, is particularly irksome (in a good way) as Anse, especially when he first explains to us the notion that objects that stand vertically, like humans, should not be mobile. Unfortunately, the staging takes this advice to heart.

Zoe Doyle, Oliver Koomsatira, and John Ng in the Canadian premiere of Lauren Yee’s Ching Chong Chinaman. Photo by Alex Felipe.

For something completely different, fu-GEN offers up the Canadian premiere of a new work from an American playwright. Lauren Yee’s Ching Chong Chinaman is about as culturally taboo as it sounds, but with good intentions.

The Wong family is as American as apple pie. Ed (John Ng) brings home the bacon, while Grace (Brenda Kamino) begs for another baby. Sister Desi (Zoe Doyle) is consumed with her Princeton application, and brother Upton (Oliver Koomsatira) has big dreams of becoming a gaming champion and meeting the South Korean girl he’s been wooing online. Tell us if you’ve seen this sitcom episode before: Upton and Desi have trouble keeping up with all of their priorities, so they use an indentured worker from China, whom they call J (Richard Lee), to take care of their menial tasks and math homework, though he has his own dreams for his new life in America. Jane Luk plays a series of Asian women, including J’s mother, who works at several outsourced call centres in China; Desi’s Korean-sponsored child; a Chinese-American Princeton interviewer; and an unexpected little surprise for Grace.

Camellia Koo’s brilliantly designed set transforms the Aki Studio into a picture-perfect California home, complete with candy-coloured tiki lanterns festooning the ceiling. However, everything on the set—from the fridge, to Desi’s math book, to the iPhones—is still wrapped in its original cellophane or cardboard packaging. The Wongs may have everything they need in this American life, but that doesn’t mean they’re at all settled or comfortable with it.

Director Nina Lee Aquino, who recently got the job of co-artistic director at Factory Theatre, has a clear vision for the Wongs, and doesn’t flinch in taking a sledgehammer to their struggle to merge their American identities with their Asian heritage. She lets the Wongs almost completely self-destruct before capping it all off with a sombre and moving moment. Ching Chong Chinaman is an excellent Canadian introduction for Lauren Yee, and there’s a great tap-dance number, too.

After all the late nights, CMW-goers are inevitably going to want a dark, comfy corner and an extra-large pile of popcorn (or two) to help them ease into the days. Luckily, the CMW’s Film Fest has a lineup of music-related movies playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West) throughout the week. Here are a few of the must-sees.

Ain’t in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm

When: Thursday, March 21, 7 p.m.

Last April, the folk-music icon Levon Helm—former drummer and lead singer of The Band—died of throat cancer at the age of 71. There were obituaries and tributes, including one at last month’s Grammy Awards ceremony. Though Helm continued to tour his final solo album until only a few years before his death, he struggled with demons from his past: the breakup of The Band, the deaths of his bandmates, throat cancer, addiction, and bankruptcy. In this film (which will be making its Canadian debut during CMW), director Jacob Hatley gets up close and personal with Helm, his family, and his friends near the end of the musician’s life.

Spring Breakers

When: Thursday, March 21, 9:15 p.m.

If you missed it at the Toronto International Film Festival, now’s your chance to get a sneak peak at Harmony Korine’s buzzed-about, candy-coloured Spring Breakers, a story about four college students who go bad over their reading week. It stars former Disney darlings Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as crime-spreeing coeds, and James Franco as a cornrowed rapper named Alien.

The History of Future Folk

When: Friday, March 22, 9:15 p.m.

Let’s be honest, if there was ever a real-life alien invasion, music would probably be our salvation. So really, it was only a matter of time before this premise became cinematic magic. The time has come. The History of Future Folk is a comedy about two aliens sent to destroy mankind who end up disobeying their orders and forming a folk band instead. The film, by directors John Mitchell and Jeremy Kipp Walker, has been working the festival circuit, picking up accolades at Fantastic Fest, the Los Angeles Film Fest, and the Philadelphia Film Festival. This screening marks its Toronto debut.

The Last Pogo Jumps Again

When: Saturday, March 23, 1 p.m.

On Saturday, CMW-goers will have the chance to attend the world premiere of The Last Pogo Jumps Again, a documentary six years in the making that chronicles Toronto’s punk-rock and new-wave scene. Filmmakers Colin Brunton and Kire Paputts track down people who were at the centre of Toronto’s Queen West punk movement between 1976 and 1978. There are appearances by people and bands like Steven ‘Nazi Dog’ Leckie, the Diodes, Frankie Venom and Mickey DeSadist, The Demics, and The Curse. Watch and learn why Toronto’s underground punk scene rivalled those of New York and London.

Claire Calnan, Lauren Vandenbrook, and Kawa Ada. Photo by Joanna Akyol.

Iceland
Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst Street)
March 2 to 24, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
$32 to $42

For Torontonians suffering from a case of cabin fever, we highly recommend traveling to Iceland this month. It might not be the most comforting trip, but it’s well worth the fare.

Contrary to its title, Nicolas Billon’s play—the second in his Fault Lines trilogy (which also consists of Greenland and The Faroe Islands)—doesn’t take place in its namesake scenic island nation. Rather, it zooms in on a single condo in Toronto’s Liberty Village, and the three people whose lives intersect in one traumatic incident there. As each character reveals his or her part to play, we learn that the trio is drawn together by far more than just coincidence. Their lives are interconnected by the almighty dollar.

For Kassandra (Lauren Vandenbrook), money is a burden. After moving from Estonia to Toronto to pursue her masters in history at the University of Toronto, she eventually has to take up work as an escort to offset her twin brother’s gambling habit back home. For Halim (Kawa Ada), a Pakistani man, money is a passion. He’s a condo flipper and a full-blooded capitalist who holds his cash (and crude sense of humour) in full view. To him, “money is perfect”—a way of simplifying relationships, goals, and happiness. Meanwhile, for Anna (Claire Calnan), a devout Christian with a strong network of friends on social media but no apparent connections in real life, money is a sin. Her life is upended when she’s evicted from her rented condo by its new owner, only to find it back on the market, newly renovated with a much higher price tag, a month later.

Billon’s script isolates the characters through monologues spoken directly to the audience, and Ravi Jain’s direction deepens the chasm between them by physically separating them on the Factory Theatre stage, leaving them visible under precise spotlights, with what seems like miles of darkness in between. Whatever interaction there is between the characters is stiff, cold, and distant. Luckily, each actor is entirely capable of carrying the show solo.

Calnan—who, like Ada, is reprising her role from this summer’s acclaimed run during the SummerWorks festival—is frighteningly contained as Anna, a woman no one looks at twice (unless she’s scolding them for their foul language). Her tension is so visceral that her voice and tears tremble with it, though she never leaves her chair. Ada, on the other hand, relishes his character’s overbearing nature. Halim adores cashing in on what he sees as weaknesses in others. His unabashedly sexist and immoral attitudes are incredibly repulsive, but Ada delivers them with such gusto that you’d be crazy to want him to stop.

While Anna and Halim are polar opposites, Kassandra is the tragic third party stuck in the middle. Vandenbrook is the only newcomer to the production, and she’s a bit too far removed in her performance to match the magnetism of Calnan and Ada. But Billon’s impressively crafted script will nevertheless keep audiences rapt while they untangle the various layers and connections between the characters.

The play’s title factors in during Halim’s speech, during which he talks about his desire to pounce on money-making opportunities when other people are down. To fully understand the connection, it would help to bone up on Iceland’s recent banking history. (Remember when they were considering adopting the Canadian dollar?) But even without a degree in international economics, Iceland will leave you thinking about the real cost of every overpriced condo listing you come across.

The Toronto Civic Handbook will hopefully answer this question, and many more. Photo by Arminho Paper and Daniel Farrell.

Toronto Civic Handbook Workshop
The Academy of the Impossible (231 Wallace Avenue)
March 17, 10 a.m.
FREE

For some Torontonians, civic engagement means checking off a ballot in a cardboard booth every four years. But to Rowan Caister, a graphic designer and volunteer with the #TOPoli WTF series, it’s the time in between those ballots that matters.

So this Sunday, he’s hosting a workshop as part of his effort to create a Toronto Civic Handbook—a document designed to outline need-to-know information on how to become more active in community events, and even how to start your own. Anyone with experience or advice to share is invited to join in the free event. Caister hopes the results will eventually inspire more Torontonians to host block parties, form business improvement areas, or give deputations.

We spoke with Caister about the project.

Torontoist: What inspired this idea?

Rowan Caister: I’ve been on the fringes of a lot of different community projects. Sometimes I’ll choose to get involved and sometimes I’ll sit back and appreciate the work that other people do… It’s sometimes daunting to get involved, and it’s certainly daunting if you want to do your own thing. Seeing so many good projects, there’s always a question of how to do it yourself. So what I hope to do with this project is answer a lot of those how-to questions.

Every four years we seem to have a conversation about voter apathy, but it’s my position that that may be apathy towards voting, but it’s certainly not apathy towards engagement or community projects. There’s always something going on. It’s just, how do these communities go out and do it? And if there’s an opportunity such as this one, where we can get together and share our experience, we can combine them.

Why do you think Torontonians will be more responsive to a handbook like this than they are to the relatively simple act of going out and voting?

That common discussion of voter apathy is quite separate from our day-to-day lives. You really like your neighbours, you say “hi” as you walk down the street. That’s community. There are obviously many examples of communities coming together to address their needs that are quite different than other groups. So, what strategies do they have for bringing in new people? What resources do they draw on? And what lessons do they have based on what they’ve done so far? It’s a tall order, but I think it’s important to be open to people’s imaginations about what we can achieve with this.

What kind of topics do you plan on covering in the handbook?

The content I’m leaving quite open. I’ve heard a lot already about what people are thinking as I’ve spoken to people individually. Running for city councilor seems like a very daunting thing. How complicated is that? How much does it cost to run a campaign? The guide will hopefully tackle not just the steps you have to go through, but a little bit about the context as well.

Sometimes it’s a matter of not knowing what you can contribute. Everyone has a skill set, but sometimes they can’t see how they can be useful to a community group as well. Each entry might not represent the work of one community, each entry might represent one of the tools that a community uses. So by understanding the tools to engage people or address their needs, perhaps you can understand how you can contribute to any number of endeavours.

What do you mean by “tools”?

One of the things I’ve noticed is that it’s hard just finding a space to hold an event. Space is a tool. If you cannot meet, you cannot engage.

The deadline as to what gets in will be left up to the people who choose to get involved. I’m leaving it open-ended right now, and I’ll let people with more experience than I have help to shape this project. The priorities are just that it’s accessible, covers a handful of useful topics, and answers those how-tos. That it’s a handbook.

Speaking of keeping it accessible: how important will the visuals be in the handbook?

I do have a design background, but I’ve heard that the challenge in reaching a lot of people with an accessible document is keeping the language simple. And quite honestly, keeping it to a minimum.

Who else are you working with on the Toronto Civic Handbook?

I’ve had people come forward. People emailed me just after I put up the event posting and went on Twitter. I’ve contacted Claire McWatt of the Toronto Youth Cabinet, and Dave Meslin, of everything. We’ll meet in person to make presentations, to lead discussions, and give people an example of the direction this project will start going in.

We’ll be looking at the way the city already communicates as far as civic engagement, and we’ll also look at other cities that have produced similar documents. We’ll be having round-table discussions, producing as much as we can.

Spots are still available for this Sunday’s Toronto Civic Handbook workshop, and those unable to attend can sign up for the mailing list.

CORRECTION: March 14, 2013, 12:30 PM This post originally said, incorrectly, that Rowan Caister is a volunteer with the Toronto Public Space Initiative. In fact, he was a volunteer with Streets to Screens, an initiative of the former Toronto Public Space Committee.

Clare Coulter faces her own legacy, as well as an old king, in Philip McKee’s LEAR. Photo by Guntar Cravis.

LEAR
Harbourfront Centre Studio Theatre (235 Queens Quay West)
March 5 to 10, 8 p.m., weekend matinees at 4 p.m.
$15–$30

King Lear is often considered a sort of “end of the line” character—a part that celebrated actors undertake when they want to cap off a long, storied career. However, this isn’t always acknowledged, especially not by people involved in a production of the play. But LEAR, an experimental, stripped-down adaptation of William Shakespeare’s original, deliberately intertwines the ideas of confronting one’s legacy as an actor and confronting one’s legacy as a ruler. In the starring role is 70-year-old stage legend Clare Coulter, with 30-year-old director and creator Philip McKee at the helm.

McKee’s reimagining of the show began with him simply seeking out a strong Shakespearian role in which he could cast Coulter, whom he knew from his time at Montreal’s National Theatre School. The character of Lear, though not one ordinarily played by a woman, presented certain interesting parallels. Lear divides his declining kingdom and splits it between his daughters, two of whom eventually turn on him and drive him mad. Coulter, meanwhile, says her pioneering role in Canadian theatre is currently being usurped by a younger generation of actors and creators. McKee capitalizes on that similarity in a brooding, technical, slow-paced play that’ll leave you reeling.

In McKee’s staging of LEAR, the Harbourfront Centre’s studio and the technical aspects of theatre are as much characters as King Lear (Coulter) and his daughters Goneril (Liz Peterson), Regan (Amy Nostbakken), and Cordelia (Lindsey Clark). Through a slit in the stage’s red velvet curtain, we see glimpses of a giddy Lear dressed in an ornate black gown, and then in an exotic and rich outfit, much like the elaborate costumes an actor might wear in his or her prime. However, when the curtains open up, it looks more like we’re watching a rehearsal in a gloomy basement. Goneril and Regan wear casual tights and baggy sweaters, and Lear has traded his formal wear for cargo pants and a heavy, floor-length coat. Styrofoam cups stand in for Lear’s kingdom, which Coulter places carefully on a long, plain, wooden table. A black-tarp backdrop gives the impression that the whole thing is taking place inside a garbage bag. But the only standout technical element—a simple microphone set up on the table by Regan and Goneril—is enough to give the play’s opening an arresting tension.

Without giving too much away, when Regan and Goneril flip on their father, so does the physical space, in a way that surprises the audience just slightly less than it does Lear. Because of this, the viewers are implicated in Lear’s loss of power, which is an interesting comment on the role that audiences play in ushering older actors out of the collective consciousness. But McKee doesn’t leave it there. After we see Lear literally deprived of the spotlight, all members of the production—stage manager, sceneographer, and dramaturge—have a part to play in slowly taking away Lear’s power and dignity.

Which isn’t to say that the message of this show is that the young will inherit the earth. In a wordless scene, Regan and Goneril test their physical endurance against each other until they’re both defeated. All that’s left is an incredibly moving farewell from Coulter, demonstrating how she became so renowned in the first place. She may be passing the torch to a new generation, but it’s one that is clearly bright and fiery. And in the hands of newcomers like McKee, it won’t be extinguished any time soon.

Dennis Fitzgerald and the ensemble of And Slowly Beauty… have problems of Chekhovian proportions. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

And Slowly Beauty…
Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman Avenue)
February 20 to March 31, 8 p.m., weekend matinees at 2:30 p.m.
$27 to $53

A large part of a theatre critic’s job is to encourage others—especially those who wouldn’t ordinarily seek out theatrical experiences—to go out and see artistic events and performances. The benefit of going to the theatre, we often imply, is that the viewer’s worldview will be changed, heightened, or broadened in some way. Michel Nadeau’s And Slowly Beauty…, an original production from Quebec City’s Théâtre Niveau Parking (in an English translation by Maureen Labonté), on now at Tarragon Theatre, tells exactly that story.

Mr. Mann (Dennis Fitzgerald) is a man in his late forties. He has two college-aged kids, a realtor wife, a home that’s finally just the way he likes it, and a steady job at a government agency that allows him to work with the homeless. The sudden illness of a coworker coincides with Mann winning theatre tickets to a performance of Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. “I never win anything,” he moans. He goes alone, while his family is off doing other things.

Mann is profoundly changed by the play, which famously ponders the meaning and monotony of life. He pores over the script and revisits the play several times. He learns how to appreciate life. In theory, this is a beautiful thing—and some of his scenes later in the play, featuring his wife, daughter, and barista friend (Caroline Gillis, Celine Stubel, and Mary-Colin Chisholm respectively, all of whom also recur as the three sisters) are beautiful to see—but this overly sentimental play ends up becoming little more than a cheesy onstage portrayal of a rich white man’s midlife crisis.

The first problem with the world today, according to Mann? People work too much, and it’s destroying their health. He visits his 30-something coworker Sylvain in the hospital (spoiler: he’s not long for this world). Afterward, Mann laments the young family (very sad) and expensive cottage (not so sad) Sylvain will leave behind. Mann is also distressed over aspects of his own life: for instance, the fact that he started his job and had a family immediately after university, leaving no time for travel, adventure, or learning. Well he can sure rest easy now, since the possibility of working in one job for an entire career in today’s economy has all but evaporated, as many news articles will confirm. Sure, work is stressful. And yeah, we all probably do it too much. But you know what’s not stressful? Having a pension, benefits, and a guaranteed income. A young book store clerk (Shawn Ahmed) points out the Bourgeois tendencies of Chekhov’s own work (tendencies And Slowly Beauty… shares), but Mann purposely and blatantly ignores his comments. We aren’t surprised.

Mr. Mann yearns to be anyone he’s not. He’s envious of a group of bohemians discussing art projects and getting into passionate fights in a cafe, and also some young actors whooping and drinking as they plan to take a show to a festival in France. He even casts a wistful eye upon a beautiful friendship between two homeless people. What glorious lives they all must lead! Never does the play acknowledge the countless artists barely scraping by, or the incomprehensible adversities that a city’s homeless population faces. Mann encourages his directionless son to travel to South America to go build, uh…something with bricks, probably, because that’s something youth should do. Mann’s view of young people, and by extension the play’s portrayal of them, is so bafflingly one-sided, it breaks your heart.

With a run time of over two hours and no intermission, And Slowly Beauty… indeed moves slowly. It features an intricate and quite stunning set of white panes, glass, and mirrors by John Ferguson, and director Michael Shamata keeps a steady reign on the sprawling script. Even so, this is a play about relishing every moment that runs the risk of making a segment of its audience feel cheated out of two hours.

CORRECTION: March 2, 2013, 12:45 PM This review originally stated that the play was translated by Nicolas Billon, when in fact the translation was done by Maureen Labonté.