THEATRE REVIEW:
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE:
THE CN TOWER SHOW

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
R: 3.5/5

With all the media coverage of Toronto's myriad problems — be it gun violence, transportation woes, construction dilemmas or a dysfunctional council — one might assume that a quick look at our city through rose-coloured glasses might be a welcome change. And to some degree, one would be right. For proof, look no further than THIS MUST BE THE PLACE: THE CN TOWER SHOW, currently playing on the stage of Theatre Passe Muraille, the latest entry in a series of fresh-faced Toronto-centric shows that comprise the theatre's current season and anchor it firmly in its community.

Collectively created by the Architect Theatre Collective in the great tradition on which TPM was built, this is a show that attempts to capture modern-day Toronto in microcosm, building on a series of one-on-one interviews conducted and then dramatized by the four-person cast, aided by director Jonathan Seinen, Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman and Layne Coleman. And while it can boast dramatized interviews with former mayors David Miller and David Crombie, as well as the late Jane Jacobs, it also offers perspectives gleaned from a host of everyday Torontonians living their everyday Toronto lives.

Subway riders, panhandlers, community workers, disaffected youth and ambitious city councillors mingle with fresh-faced newcomers and jaded members of the established middle class — they are all embraced in a show that gently mocks our city even while it underscores a deep affection for the place. All of which means that there's not a lot of hard-hitting stuff here, hardly surprising, on reflection, in a world where people don't much like portraits that show them in anything less than flattering light.

But under the rather loose direction of Seinen, it still merits more than a quick look-see, for while THE CN TOWER SHOW may not offer any terribly earth shattering new perspectives on this city we call home (unless, of course, you didn't know the tower of title was to have been the centre-piece for a massive urban renewal renewal that would have claimed Union Station), it does give us a close up look a four very appealing young performers.

Led by a hugely talented Greg Gale, who inhabits even the most ludicrous comic characters with great heart, Georgina Beaty, Ingrid Hansen and Thomas Anthony Olajide individually and collectively demonstrate a genuine gift for stage-craft. But too often, this appealing quartet are charged with tedious exercises intended to involve an audience in their shenanigans, when composing songs and eliciting confessions of bad behaviour from said audience really only serves, at best, to blur their efforts to put modern-day Toronto under the microscope and, at worst, distracts us from the quest altogether.

So, if you're looking for deep insight into what makes Toronto tick, this might be a show to miss. But if you're simply looking for a pleasant evening of theatre, then, by all means, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.