Here’s a few things that written about the play.
Toronto the great
This is one of the best plays on race and violence city has ever seen
By JOHN COULBOURN
The Toronto SUN
It’s possible the most telling moments in Toronto The Good — the latest play from playwright Andrew Moodie — will happen in the hours after the curtain falls on performance, as patrons make their way home, or linger over coffee or a cocktail and discuss the play they have just seen.
That’s a powerful testament not only to Moodie’s impressive skill as a playwright, but to a cast that’s been sharpened to a razor’s edge under the precision directorial honing of Philip Akin.
Toronto The Good opened in its world premiere on the main stage of the Factory Theatre Thursday and it takes a candid look at the whole issue of gun violence and our community.
And Moodie makes it clear from the get-go that when he’s talking about community, he’s talking to us all, not merely to an impoverished black community where the problem seems most severe or a liberal community of hand wringers, or their mirror images, scolding from the right.
The story centres around a black youth (played with simmering rage by Marcel Stewart) charged with possession of an illegal firearm — a charge that may (or may not) stem from racial profiling on the part of the arresting officer (Sandra Forsell).
The case and its merits are being debated by a rising young Crown attorney (played by Xuan Fraser) and a harried public defender (Brian Marler), both of whom have, like most of us, personal issues that constantly spill over into their professional lives.
Fraser’s Thomas is a black man married to a white woman (Stephanie Broschart), and the couple is expecting their first child, juggling the demands of a mixed-race marriage, two careers and a pregnancy.
Meanwhile, Marler’s harried Simon, a white man married to a Jewish woman, is already the father of two children and is feeling trapped in his marriage.
Miranda Edwards rounds out the cast in a number of roles, principal among them a young girl trapped in a culture of gun violence, a grieving sister directly affected by it and a journalist (perhaps the only poorly drawn character in the play) attempting to twist it to fit her own perspective.
In other words, this is a play populated by the people of Toronto, and as the title suggests, they are all good people, each of them flawed in their way but determined nonetheless to address issues like gun violence.
But as the story progresses — as the two young people at the heart of the tale plead so quietly for help that they are overlooked — it becomes increasingly obvious our efforts merely attempt to disguise the symptoms rather than treat the disease.
While Moodie and Akin refuse at almost every turn to offer up pat or easy solutions, they suggest there is blame enough and more to go around, and they spare no one — from politicians of every stripe, to journalists with an agenda and middle-class philosophers of every hue.
Already a proven talent at creating dialogue for his characters on stage, in this unconventional play, Moodie seems determined to demonstrate an equally impressive talent for creating dialogue offstage — and he succeeds.
Under Akin’s direction, a hugely talented cast gives polished, thought-provoking performances, each member tackling a multitude of roles with unflinching candor, making the most of Kelly Wolf’s simple but effective urban set and Moodie’s wonderfully observed prose.
Together they create what is arguably one of the most compelling plays on race and violence this city has ever seen.
And if the solution to the problem is only to be found, as one suspects, in community dialogue, then while they offer no solutions, they at least set us on a road that, if followed, might just move our city from Toronto the Good to Toronto the Better.
Toronto the Good
Richard Ouzounian
the Toronto Star
Listen closely to Toronto the Good, Andrew Moodie’s new play that opened last night at Factory Theatre, and you will truly hear the sound of our city.
Everyone from the black rappers and the Irish cops to the conflicted francophones and inbred WASPs fall under Moodie’s microscope. Or perhaps I should say microphone, because it’s his ear for speech that’s so accurate, deadly.
A young black man is stopped while driving his car and discovered to be carrying a gun. The Crown wants him behind bars; his defence is that he was racially profiled.
That may sound like a common enough case to you, but Moodie knows how to turn the screws. The man gunning for conviction is Thomas, a right-leaning Crown attorney who happens to be black. The defence is in the hands of Simon, a far-left dude with enough issues to launch a magazine.
Add to this the information that Thomas has been racially profiled himself on several occasions, quarrels over ethnic issues with his pregnant Franco-Canadian wife and isn’t sure that every gangsta is worth saving and you have a nicely complex story.
Moodie avoids glib answers and predictable side-taking, except for one scene near the end when Thomas and Simon square off and start lobbing political insults at each other. Most of the time, however, the action is swift in Philip Akin’s impactful production and the acting highly persuasive.
Xuan Fraser hits all the required marks as Thomas, with an ironic wit that he turns on himself like a double-edged razor blade. Brian Marler is equally fine as Simon, making this morally loose cannon of a man someone we like and pity, rather than despise.
Stéphanie Broschart is warmly winning as Almanda, Thomas’s wife, and Sandra Forsell has a nice strength as the beleaguered cop, Elsie.
Marcel Stewart shows admirable range playing a variety of young men and Miranda Edwards runs an equally impressive gamut of assignments from a duplicitous Toronto Star reporter (clearly a gross piece of fiction!) to a no-nonsense prostitute.
In the end, Moodie makes no giant statement and builds to no huge climax, which is a bit of a disappointment. But the journey along the way has been well worth taking and anyone interested in the future of this city should pay a visit to Toronto the Good.
