The Master Plan by Michael Healey opened last night at Crow’s Theatre in a production directed by Chris Abraham.  It’s based on Josh O’Kane’s book Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy and deals with the tortuous relationship between Google subsidiary Sidewalk Labs, Waterfront Toronto and the various other stakeholders involved in developing the (relatively) small parcel of land, Quayside, at Parliament and Queen’s Quay and the wider future of the Eastern Portlands.

At the core is a worthwhile vision; developing a pilot for a sustainable, affordable, human neighbourhood where lessons learned could be applied to the wider redevelopment project.  It’s not impossible.  I’m writing this in the heart of the St. Lawrence redevelopment which might be considered the 1970s equivalent of the Portlands.  But Big Tech corporate hubris and American cultural insensitivity smashes into Ontario Public Sector bureaucracy and inertia and Toronto NIMBYism in a spectacular train wreck.  This is fuelled, of course, by (justified) public fear of arrogant Big Tech companies, a series of regulations that have developed for the sole purpose of avoiding embarrassing senior politicians, irresponsible journalists and grandstanding MPs.  The victims are the small army of idealistic young people who believed in their project and those of us who hope (do we still believe?) in a sustainable, livable Toronto.  And, of course, the bureaucrats survive to obstruct another day.

Healey and Abraham’s achievement is to turn this into a fast paced black comedy in which scene succeeds scene in an increasingly surreal and horribly believable way and to keep up the momentum of that for two and a half hours.  It’s clever and very funny and, for someone with my extensive experience in and with the OPS, frighteningly realistic.  It’s really quite brilliant.

So let’s try and give a flavour of it by taking a few scenes and themes.  It starts with a Googleish avatar of Chris Abrahams explaining that we are being surveilled for our reactions to his production.  Applause doesn’t cut it any more.  They will be analysing our facial expressions and even the blood flow in our buttocks to track the effects of the show.  Of course none of this data will be misused in any way.  QR codes offer an opt out but I didn’t see anyone photo it.  We know it’s a spoof but even if it weren’t nobody would believe in the opt out.

In an attempt to show how Toronto really works there’s a scene concerning the removal of a Norway maple (played by Peter Fernandes) at 164 Axminster Road.  This requires a decision by the full Toronto council marshalled in a recorded vote by a zombie like Frances Nunziata.  The tree is acquitted.  This is just one of many times the cast play “real” people; usually by assuming an appropriate hairstyle.  There are appearances by Justin Trudeau, Katherine Wynn and John Tory among others.  There’s a sad final scene where Cam Malagaam (Christopher Allen), who stands proxy for all the young idealists, arrives at Waterfront TO’s offices to announce that he’s negotiated a deal for affordable housing with the Mississaugas of the New Credit, ignorant of the fact that minutes before a change of leadership at Google has resulted in the plug being pulled on the whole project.

The main dramatic arc though revolves around the relationship between Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff (Mike Shara) and various representatives of WTO; notably Meg Davies (Philippa Domville), Kristina Verner (Tara Nicodemo) and CEO Will Fleissig (Ben Carlson).  Shara is superb as the foul mouthed, delusional Doctoroff who will not be told that Sidewalk cannot and will not be gifted the whole Portlands project whoever they try to influence, however much they invest, whatever they promise to corporate and however much they manipulate and betray their relationship with WTO.  It’s Big Tech personified.  Who are elected politicians to tell Big Tech how to run the world? The other three behave like good Canadian bureaucrats taking the shit and repeatedly explaining the grim reality of making anything happen in Toronto! When the denouement comes (i.e. Sidewalk bails) Meg and Kristina just get on with writing a new RFP.

And that perhaps is where things come full circle because very early on we learn that the original RFP only attracted three credible responses and two of those dropped out as soon as Ts and Cs were discussed.  The “winning” bidder was obviously overpromising and probably barking mad but process said they “won”.  And that’s how procurement is done in Ontario.  Hence Diabetes Registry, Eglinton Crosstown and more.  It had train wreck written on it from the start but no lessons were learned and we can confidently expect the process to cycle a few more times.

I’m bouncing back and forth between reality and theatre because that’s really what it felt like.  The cast; all the folks I’ve already mentioned plus Yanna McIntosh who played, among others, the WTO Board Chair play multiple roles with aplomb.  The set, in the round, by Joshua Quinlan, with its live video (Amelia Scott) and lighting and sound design by Kimberley Purcell and Thomas Ryder Payne really absolutely encapsulate the weirdly hubristic and insincere atmosphere of the Sidewalk Labs premises (I was there for the tour and Tapestry’s TapEx:Augmented in 2019).

It’s a strange show to write about for me.  It’s all a bit personal.  Last night I got off the bus home from Crow’s bang outside what used to be Sidewalk Labs.  I can see the Quayside site from my apartment.  I knew people who worked at Sidewalk and I had very mixed feelings about what it would do for what is basically part of my neighbourhood (and would be even more intimately connected if the bastard Gardiner had been demolished). I haven’t been as connected to the subject matter of a play since I saw Tim Albery’s production of Love and Kisses from Kirkby at the Everyman in Liverpool in 1976.  But that’s another story.

So I’ll finish on what a theatre review is supposed to do; tell you why you might want to go and see this show.  Bottom line, it’s a brilliantly funny, fast paced show with great designs, direction and acting.  It’s also an insightful and frighteningly accurate look into how Toronto and Ontario are governed.  If you come away feeling it really can’t be that dysfunctional, think again.  I’ve lived it.

The Master Plan runs at Crow’s Theatre until October 8th.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz