I was lucky. My
passion for theatre developed in the brief, shining and glorious decade when
Toronto, ranked with New York and London, was the theatre hub of the
world. Even though I lived in little
Orillia, my nights were spent singing along to soundtracks; my days in school
dreaming of the next production my family would see in the big city. At that time,
Toronto theatre was at its height of varied artistry and endeavor.
It was the era of big Blockbuster Musicals. Before the age
of the JukeBox musical and when everything was fresh and new and
beguiling. It married classics (the
great revamp of Show Boat) with edgy kaleidoscopes of music and colour: Joseph! Ragtime!! Les Miserables. Phantom!
Toronto in the 1990s was when I first knew it. Because the
1990s was the decade in which this 31 year old came of age.
Our assistant pastor’s wife loaned me The Canadian Cast of
the Phantom of the Opera when I was in
grade 7 (Colm Wilkinson! Rebecca Caine) and I was hooked. I begged ( and
got )vocal lessons from my parents so I could sing like Christine and I borrowed
the Gaston Leroux novel from the library. A love affair was born. Very soon
after Les Miserables followed, the singing continued and the incessant reading
of classics began. Not only classics of
literature; but classics of the stage. I
was obsessed with the early beginnings of the stage: of operetta, of Gershwin,
Porter, of the years that led us through the Golden Age to the modern
renaissance. Indeed, musical theatre in the 1990s was evolving, yes, but often
a renaissance.
Fortunately, for me, the city not too far-- with its lights
sparkling and its performances awaiting-- was filled of touring companies and
the productions that settled in for long, languid and brilliant runs. Lavish
productions at beautiful theatres. Often productions would test here before heading
to Broadway. Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell in Ragtime , Clorish
Leachman et al in Show Boat, Donny Osmond in Joseph! we were the perfect
breeding ground. WE HAD COLM WILKINSON ( I have seen him on stage countless
times) The Mirvishs ran half the town (
The Princess of Wales, Royal Alex, the Elgin, the New Yorker which is now the
Panasonic) and Garth Drabinsky’s Livent had shows at the Pantages ( now the Ed Mirvish
Theatre) The Ford Centre ( now the Toronto Centre for the Arts)
and the Hummingbird (now the Sony). This
was, as you can tell, before the days of sponsored signs when theatres were
just like stepping back into a slice of heaven.
[COLM FRIGGIN' WILKINSON]
[COLM FRIGGIN' WILKINSON]
God in heaven, I was obsessed! I saved my ticket stubs, bought programs, leafed
through the playbills, recognized all the Canadian stars, geared up for the
next production, asked for tickets for Christmas and birthdays. I LOVED
miniBroadway!
Garth Drabinsky and his ilk fed my creative consciousness.
Showstopper: the documentary which exposes the rise and fall of his fraudulent
empire took me on a bitter-sweet whirl through the past. On the front, it was an
excavation of Toronto in the 1990s. I moved here in 2001 and so while I was a
visitor, it had yet to become my home. And yet, yet I remember the way it
looked and how exciting it was to come on a visit. To go to the theatre.
The documentary itself is fascinating especially in how it
unravels the destruction of an empire; but how it best worked for me was as a
recollection of what the theatre experience used to be like: a treasured and
certain thing: a major event.
I have been to London’s West End, to Broadway, to the great opera houses of Austria. I have seen
more of the world in my adult life; but the magic of my formative years as a
theatre attendant is unparalleled.
Certainly I live in the city ( where theatre and performance still thrives,
if on a somewhat different scale); but while it is still special it is more
readily available and it is the build-up
to a performance that I miss.
My family dressed up to the theatre. It was an event. We
would talk about it before and after, we would sit quietly as in church reverently
watching the action on the stage. Vendors didn’t wander up and down the aisles
dolling out ice cream and beer, cell phones were owned only by the police and Zach
Morris. The only light that occasionally
went off was an illegal flash from a hand-held (non- digital ) camera. But, for
the most part, audiences behaved differently.
The theatre was a place of reverence.
The film struck a dim chord with me mostly because it caused
me to exhume what had long been buried: that moment, that memory of what it
REALLY felt like to see a show: the orchestra tuning in the pit, the applause
as the conductor wove his way to the front of the musicians, the first cymbal
clash or note played, the first action on stage when the red or dark blue curtain
was pealed back. With the end of Drabinsky
and Livent came the end of an era: not only for Toronto but also for Broadway.
Things are different now: the scales and subjects and calibre of shows are
different, the audiences are different, the producers and creators cater to
different (and often absurd ) audience needs.
Anyone who is interested in the Blockbuster Age of musicals,
in the Tony Awards, in any of the Livent mounted shows will appreciate this
bittersweet piece. A favourite moment occurred
in one of the many great interviews (Elaine Stritch, Chita Rivera are just a
few of the famed interviewed) where legendary Dihann Carroll speaks to Drabinsky’s
risk in casting her as Norma Desmond in the Toronto production of Sunset Boulevard. Here, Drabinsky broke the mold and a colour
barrier.
This took me back and I think it will take a lot of people
back: back to an age of my city before Yonge and Dundas Square, before SARS,
before the insane amount of box stores and digitalization where the City was an
adventure and not a sponsored entity.
Garth Drabinksy knew the moment The Lion King won the Tony that Ragtime
( his stake in the race) and his empire would soon crumble. I doubt the
Toronto theatre community recognized that, on a smaller scale, it was also
ushering the end of an era.
[if you don't know about Garth Drabinksy, read the wikipedia article and do a google search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Drabinsky]
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