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Culture Theatre

Memory Play

The International Children’s Festival of the Arts through May 29 at various locations around Harbourfront Centre (235 Queens Quay West). $9-$15.50 (passes). For complete info, see Theatre Listings, page 80. 416-973-4000, www.harbourfrontcentre.com/milk.

MUSEUM OF MEMORIES (Lotte Van den Berg/Het Lab, the Netherlands). Ages eight and up. May 27 at 10 am and 1 pm, May 28 at 12:15 and 3:15 pm, May 29 at noon and 3:15 pm. Lakeside Terrace. Rating: NNN

Rating: NNN

Experts say our sense of smell is closely linked to memory. The Museum Of Memories, played in a copse of trees on the lakeside edge of Harbourfront’s grounds, smells like damp wood, mothballs and my grandma’s attic – all with the lure of C. S. Lewis’s fateful wardrobe.

As a portal, the museum takes you not into another world, but into the mind of a man who has recently died and whose memories are curated by the Eddies, two men hell-bent on providing accurate recreations of recollections for the recently deceased.

These guys take their work very seriously, subjecting their specimen to all sorts of strange tests and manipulations via a Lemony Snicket-ish collection of strange little machines, rubber bands, random levers and clever switches.

Watching a man relive his first kiss, a fateful walk in the woods and a birthday party while smelling perfume, loam and party food makes for a spellbinding hour for older children and teenagers.

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