In October 2022 I traveled to Toronto to interview folks who had been involved in challenging Google’s proposed “smart city” redevelopment on the city’s Waterfront. Early on in these discussions my interlocutors began asking if I had read “Sideways,” a recently published book by journalist Josh O’Kane that chronicles the contentious history of the project. The book was so new that it hadn’t been on my radar (some of my interviewees had been at book launch events just a week earlier), and as someone who had followed the Sidewalk Toronto saga from afar for years I was somewhat taken aback by how quickly this recent history was being concretized (as well as envious of O’Kane’s ability to get a book out so quickly). Nearly a year later I was conducting a follow-up Zoom interview with prominent Sidewalk critic Bianca Wylie, and Bianca asked if I had seen the new Toronto play based on O’Kane’s book. Once again I was caught off guard by the speed at which this story was being mediated and mythologized.
The play was called “The Master Plan” and when Bianca first told me about it the originally planned run had already been extended due to popular demand. I took a look at my calendar in the off chance I might be able to make it Toronto to catch a performance, and when the run was extended for an additional (and final) time I was able to make it work.
The play was a production of Crow’s Theatre performed in a venue at Carlaw and Dundas, not far from the Port Lands that became a crucial point of contention in the Sidewalk Toronto debate. I was excited to be able to see the play in person but also a little skeptical of how the complicated multi-year history of the Sidewalk proposal would be condensed into a two hour entertainment.
The performance was staged in the round (in the square?) with audience members seated on four sides of the slightly-sunken central area. Ceiling-mounted screens were utilized throughout the play to display graphics, data visualizations, key quotes, as well as live video feeds from the performance in-progress. While the audience was being seated actors from the show worked the room and asked about attendees’ pre-existing knowledge of the Sidewalk Toronto story.
Prior to the start of the play audience members were also permitted to inspect the architectural mock up in the center of the stage, which we were told were recreations of the actual models on public display during the Sidewalk proposal. One of my personal highlights was getting to see actual copies of Google’s “master plan” for the Sidewalk development (I ended up getting cake frosting on my shoe while snapping the below photo, which makes sense if you saw the play).
The play itself employed an energetic info-tainment presentational style that reminded me of various “based on real events” docudrama films such as “The Big Short.” The complex chronology and cast of characters is kept manageable through the use of an omniscient narrator (whose ultimate identity provides a playful surprise, and also tips the authors’ hand regarding their opinion of Torontonian municipal process). I ended up being impressed by how the material was handled and how skillfully the story was translated for dramatic performance. I was also grateful for the nuggets of new knowledge I gleaned from the play. For instance, I’ve written about how the legacy of Jane Jacobs was invoked during the Sidewalk Toronto saga, but I was unaware of the fact covered in the play (and documented in O’Kane’s book) that executives considered calling the development project “Jane” before settling on the Sidewalk Toronto moniker.
At the play’s conclusion the video screens displayed a live feed from the Port Lands: a smattering of lights amidst the otherwise dark and undeveloped landscape, set to a stark soundtrack of blowing wind and the cries of sea birds. The point seems to be to strike a melancholy tone that underscores how after all the boosterism and ballyhoo, all the grand ambitions and bold visions, all the dramatic debate and deliberation, still nothing has yet been built on the plot of land at the center of the story. I found it an effective ending, one that gains impact by closing with a whimper rather than a bang. And while I have some quibbles with the play’s ideological presuppositions and engagement with issues of power, I think the ending does a nice job of honoring the uncertain and unsettled legacy of this landmark case of urban contestation.