The Master Plan is a love letter to Toronto – a tough love letter. One that’s like, “Hey, I care about you deeply, and you could be great, but you need to step it up.” And I thought it was fantastic.

Hi friends. Last week, I saw the The Master Plan at Crow’s Theatre, and it’s quite possibly the most “Toronto” play I’ve ever seen (and one of my favourite shows of the year). It’s bitingly witty, wonderfully performed, and the production quality is very high. Torontonians, see this one!

The Master Plan is a satire by Michael Healey that Crow’s commissioned based on the book “Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy” by journalist Josh O’Kane. Sorry, that was a mouthful of a sentence. The book and play are about Waterfront Toronto and Google-owned Sidewalk Labs’ recent failed partnership to build a smart city development called Quayside (pronounced “Key-side,” because that’s intuitive). The play is “entirely fictional,” of course, as it is displayed on the screen before each act. It’s just an odd coincidence that the characters share names with real people…

For those of you not from Toronto or unaware of this situation, I’ll provide a brief summary:

Waterfront Toronto is a quasi-government organization that manages a bunch of development/revitalization projects around the Lake Ontario Waterfront. I say “quasi-” because they are a government organization, but they serve as a bridge between the various levels of Government (city, provincial, federal), and they answer to each of them. Waterfront Toronto owns 12 acres of undeveloped land that they want to turn into a city of the future – “Quayside.” Think sustainable, tech-savvy…other buzz words. There are other neighbouring parcels of undeveloped land along the waterfront (owned by the Government), but Waterfront has no control or influence over these. In 2017, Waterfront selected Sidewalk Labs as their partner for the Quayside development, which was met with skepticism by the general public, since apparently everyone hates Google. Regardless, this partnership failed miserably in 2020.

Now, I was peripherally aware of the issue, but I haven’t read O’Kane’s book. I can only talk about how the issue was portrayed in the play and speculate as to the accuracy. If you know more about Quayside, let me know your thoughts in the comments!

The Master Plan opens with a brilliant bit about data privacy, and it also makes a point to mention (I believe twice) that Google abandoned its initial motto of “Don’t Be Evil” in 2018. In general, the play portrays Sidewalk Labs as an untrustworthy profit-sharing partner. There is a sympathetic young Sidewalk city planner character (played by Christopher Allen) but on the whole, something’s rotten in Denmark.

On the flipside, Waterfront came across as good people trying to do something great that kept hitting roadblocks. Sure, Waterfront may have made mistakes, but is it their fault the municipal government is committed to maintaining the status quo and didn’t cooperate with Google? Waterfront was shocked and hurt by Google’s desire for profit. They were shocked and hurt by Google’s attempt to patent their technology. They were shocked and hurt by the media’s inability to understand their goals. They were shocked and hurt a lot.

And that’s where my skepticism of theatrical interpretation vs reality comes into play. At what point is Waterfront also to blame?

First, it’s clear that Sidewalk Labs underestimated the bureaucratic nightmare of dealing with city council and overestimated Waterfront’s power to expedite processes. Up until the very end, Sidewalk tried to get Waterfront to give them more land, even though it wasn’t Waterfront’s to give. Did Sidewalk have selective hearing, or did Waterfront oversell their power? Moreover, there was obviously a misalignment of incentives, but was that because Waterfront wasn’t clear or because Sidewalk was purposefully deceitful in order to get the bid? The play tends to imply that it’s Sidewalk’s fault (after all, their CEO is a terrible listener), but in reality, I don’t think it’s that clear-cut.

Second, I have to wonder if Waterfront was asking too much with their proposal from the outset. They wanted an entirely revolutionary smart city designed from scratch, they wanted a partner that could self-fund the development work for up to 18 months (this cost Sidewalk $50M), and they were only offering a 12-acre parcel of land. It’s no wonder Google/Sidewalk was the only viable partner. The play portrays Waterfront’s objective as a noble pursuit – which I think it is – but it doesn’t touch on feasibility.

Finally, I don’t like that the play conflates issues surrounding data privacy with a general malaise toward corporations, but I especially don’t like the assertion that Sidewalk’s attempt to make a profitable venture is greedy and, dare I say, evil. Waterfront was asking for a lot of upfront work, so in order to make that feasible, Sidewalk wanted to be able to use the infrastructure they were designing for future projects, e.g. for the opportunity to use the lumber factory they were building to develop neighbouring parcels of land, or the ability to profit over patents they designed. A partnership needs to be beneficial for both partners, and framing Waterfront as being “shocked” by this revelation is simplistic.

I recognize that this “review” may have become an analysis of the issue itself instead of the play, so let me re-focus. The fact that the play has inspired me to think critically on the matter should be an indication of how successful it was – it made me care. I may also be incorrect in my understanding of the play, and perhaps it was the playwright’s goal all along to make me ask these questions. At the end of the day, I may not agree 100% with the playwright’s perspective, but I completely appreciate its being shared. That’s the beauty of well-executed theatre.

Now what made it so well-executed? Let’s break it into categories:

1. The production quality
2. The writing/directing
3. The performances

The production quality – wow, Crow’s, this show was sleek. Everything was streamlined, especially with regard to the technology components and the screens surrounding the stage. You’ll have to see the show to understand what I mean.

The space itself is also beautiful. The theatre is arena-style with a square stage in the centre. There are no bad seats.

The writing/directing – So. Sharp. Satire at its best. I especially appreciated the moments that spoke to the absurdity of Toronto government, and Tara Nicodemo and Peter Fernandes‘ roles in the City Council meeting had me laughing so hard I may have cried. Chris Abraham directed the show himself (he’s a big name in Canadian theatre outside of Crow’s as well), and I was in awe. I loved the transitions between scenes, I loved the clean set, I loved the pacing, and I loved how he directed the actors. Apart from one staging choice involving a cake in the second act that I wasn’t partial to, it was near-perfect for me.

The performances – No weak link. The actors played a number of roles each, and I appreciated how each one was distinct from each other, both in terms of accents and physicality. For example, when Christophen Allen played a representative from the German company Siemen’s, he walked very rigidly and quickly and spoke in a thick accent, in complete contrast to his portrayal of a kind and quiet Sidewalk employee named Cam. Other favourites for me include: Ben Carlson‘s fireman, Yanna McIntosh‘s John Tory (who cannot, for the life of him, learn French), and Peter Fernandes‘ role (I won’t give away the joke on this one). Philippa Domville as Meg (and Kathleen Wynne), Tara Nicodemo as Kristina, and Mike Shara as Dan were also all excellent. No complaints.

All-in-all: this one was a riot. I’m not sure how well this would translate outside of Toronto since there are many in-jokes, but I’m also not sure I care. This show feels special. I hope some of you have the opportunity to see it!

I’m in New York this week, so expect some more NYC content coming next week. Until next time 🙂

The Master Plan is playing at Crow’s Theatre on Carlaw Ave in downtown Toronto until October 15. Tickets can be purchased here. It’s nearly sold out, so I’d grab tickets fast. It’s generally unreserved seating and there are no bad seats, but we really loved sitting in the top-corner of a section.

Photo credit: crowstheatre.com