If you’re like me, you’re tired of those gorgeous young people stepping forward to stand and deliver those sappy, untuneful songs from RENT, reducing us all to tears with their mundane stories about pretty dying drag queens who -- conveniently for all of us -- have had very few lines to say and very few gay kisses to share onstage.
If you’re like me, you’re hoping that RENT -- that smarmfull heap of sentimental liberal garbage -- written so that middle class people can congratulate themselves on how much they care about the poor and the sick -- will never be produced in Toronto again (especially at the actor-exploiting Lower Ossington Theatre).
Because, unfortunately, RENT has now come to Toronto for real. Apparently THE STOREFRONT THEATRE has been kicked out of it’s downtown digs, where it has been providing challenging Toronto theatre fare for years, because of (what’s he excuse?) oh yes, fire regulations.
Right. If the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario care so much about fires, why don’t they give the TAC and the OAC enough money to fund THE STOREFRONT THEATRE so that they can bring their old space up to code? Instead these governments are complicit in destroying Toronto’s most vital performance spaces.
I’ll tell you what the problem is. People are moving to downtown Toronto so that they can be a part of a vital culturally exciting city that nurtures the arts, right? But what happens when there is no vital culturally exciting arts city anymore -- because real artists can’t afford to live and work there?
I don’t know how to tell you this, but not everybody is old and rich -- which means that not everyone prefers to hobble to their seat at the Opera, the Ballet and Soulpepper.
Not everyone is a young trendy Annex family that wants their ‘experimental’ French Canadian dance/theatre piece at Canstage to be over by 9 pm so they can hurry home for a cup of cacao-free cocoa.
No. Some of us want to drink and stay out all night, and yes -- get laid. And to facilitate all that, we want the theatre to be stimulating, perhaps shocking, and perhaps even cause us just a little bit of very sexy discomfort (there’s nothing like a little friction to turn you on!).
I fondly remember Brandon Crone’s foray into gay kink -- NATURE OF THE BEAST that featured a sexy boy tied up in the basement. I remember Tyrone Savage directing his own parents in WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF -- if that’s not perverted, what is? I remember a lot of other shocking, groundbreaking productions at STOREFRONT, and some of them were actually Canadian.
The Storefront theatre is now looking for a new home -- and I sure hope they find it. But what if they don’t? And what if they can’t afford the new space? And what is happening to the small theatre community in this town? Does anybody care?
Think of that the next time you’re crying your salty tears for Angel in RENT and patting yourself on the back for caring about the arts community by going to see a stinking pile of hypocritical crap for the thousandth time!
Yeah. Think about it.
