You Should Have Stayed Home - Go and See It

You should go out and see You Should Have Stayed Home. There are some things we, as Canadians, assume will never be obstructed; our freedom of speech, our freedoms of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, our freedom from arbitrary detention or imprisonment and the right not to be subject to cruel and unusual punishment.

I was working at a summer stock theatre in Ontario when the G20 took place. I vividly recall being in a production meeting on Skype with a designer in Toronto. The meeting ended abruptly when the noise of the violence on the street became so loud she became afraid for her safety. I remember seeing the pictures of the destruction on the streets and hearing the stories of the mass arrests. I remember asking myself how was it possible that this was happening in, not only in my country, but also in the city that I am from.  But by the time I returned home later that summer the mess from the G20 had all been cleaned up and the story had become a memory. 

You Should Have Stayed Home is Tommy Taylor’s personal account of his experience when the G20 arrived in Toronto in the summer of 2010. Taylor, who is the playwright and sole performer, tells his tale of how he became an unintentional activist. How he and his girlfriend were summarily arrested and detained, though never charged, along with hundreds of other people, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He tells of the crammed conditions in the detention centre cages, the door less Porta Potties and lack of toilet paper, of how he and his cage mates had to beg for water. 

Taylor wrote out his story immediately following his release from detention and posted it to Facebook. It immediately went viral. The script is an adaptation of his Facebook posting.  Directed by Michael Wheeler there isn’t much action in the telling of this story. Taylor plays himself, so this is not so much a play as it is a treatise on the conditions of the G20 detention centre and the treatment of the detainees, told in a friendly matter of fact kind of way.  The modest set, designed by Scott Penner, consists of a three-walled cage with a desk and a chair, a Porta Potty and a shabby florescent light hanging above. 

And, as seems to be the thing these days, there is an audience participation aspect to this production. For a few scenes roughly 20 handcuffed volunteers, all past audience members, awkwardly join Taylor onstage to illustrate the crammed conditions of his holding cage. [EDITOR'S NOTE - Here is a clarification from Praxis Theatre:  "We want to make it clear that it is NOT audience participation, and, in fact, some of our volunteer detainees have not seen the show onstage and are merely interested in taking a stand and making a statement about civil liberties.”]

Yet while the production values are underwhelming, the story itself is riveting.

It is a chilling tale of how fragile our rights and freedoms are when we take them for granted. Is this a play? One could argue not but it is an important story Canadians should hear.

Presented by The Firehall Arts Centre, this Praxis Theatre Production is not to be missed.  Details of how to become a participating audience member can be found on the Firehall website.