YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME From tonight (Thursday, August 4) at the Theatre Centre. See listing.
Tommy Taylor’s experience at last summer’s G20 convinced him that the event was about much more than cop cars being set on fire.
In downtown Toronto with friends to see what was happening, Taylor was one of the hundreds of people arrested and sent to the Eastern Avenue detention centre, where he spent a day and a half jailed with 40 others in a 10-by-20 cage, sometimes screaming for water.
“Most of the news I read after the G20 was about smashed windows and burning cars,” says the theatre artist, whose detention ironically kept him from several days of rehearsal for a SummerWorks 2010 show, Kayak.
“In fact, the importance of the event is what happened to people, not things. It’s the first time I’ve been on the other side of this kind of news story, and I know the lies that the authorities have been telling.”
Taylor turned his weekend-long experience into an 11,000-word Facebook piece that quickly went viral. Thus far, his tale has been read in 21 countries and translated into seven languages.
With the help of Praxis Theatre and director Michael Wheeler, he’s putting it onstage in what he calls “mostly a one-man show.
“I’ve been careful that it not be a lecture or theatre piece that draws conclusions for the audience. I just want to tell a story. The best theatre involves storytelling – in this case sometimes scary, but also at times funny and inspiring.”
The title, You Should Have Stayed Home, comes from the reactions of a number of friends.
“I wanted to address the feelings I’d had about the G20 and what happened to me it’s important to counter the attitude of some people that any citizens involved in the events of the weekend got what they deserved.
“In North America we’re often distanced from the fact that people’s rights can be put in jeopardy. The weekend showed me that that’s not so. We can’t take our rights for granted they come with responsibilities, sometimes the responsibility to speak out.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
