Knightwood - Between the Sheets

A powerful and very personal performance between two women, fighting for the rights to the same man. The wife of 24 years, struggling to validate her marriage. The love and tenderness have long gone beneath the weight of the trials and tribulations to secure a privileged lifestyle and satisfy personal career aspirations. The young, single, damaged girl, who finds acceptance and solace in the understanding and grace of an older man, who is seeking nothing more than love and acceptance.

The wilful destruction of the younger girl's career, the wife's lack of accountability for her part in the breakdown in the marriage and the seeming regret over actions begun that will now play out in a direction no longer desirable. The display of emotion was powerful and visceral. The unexpected, the foolhardy and reckless, the lack of nurturing - these are the things we do for and because of love - lost and found.

Please support women's theatre and ensure that we have the opportunity to continue to enjoy this calibre of play and performances. Bring some friends to this show before it is gone. Keep an eye out for other shows promoted by Knightwood Theatre - there are more good ones coming up this season.

Soulpepper - The Sunshine Boys

Laugh out loud! You must go see this show - it is too funny. The two male leads, playing retired vaudevillian partners, are absolutely hilarious and charming. The nephew, playing the straight role, is incredibly exasperated. You will never hear the word "enter", emphasis on the second syllable, again, without a smile being brought to your lips.

Definitely recommend you run right out and get tickets. And I mean run, as it is almost at the end of its run. Note your teens will also get a kick out of this too - way better than that uTube stuff they are always watching !

The Legend of Zelda - Symphony of Goddeses

Hot on the heels of a less than rivetting ballgame I am now eagerly awaiting The Legend of Zelda, the score of the video game by the same name played live by Toronto orchestra performers and accompanied by video clips of the game over its evolution (clips from over 25 years ago to today).

It was a sold out house at the Sony Center. Definitely a crowd pleaser. The room roared repeatedly as favourite characters, were featured. It was fun to watch Link mature over the years, from the first short squat troll-like figure of 1975 to the realistic and humanistic looking elf in the current version of the game.

It was also quite an experience to see three screaming encores by a roomful of gamers (and many parents too, actually).

If you think you would have liked this show, then you should check out Video Games Live - look it up right away because it is coming to Toronto in October and tickets have been on sale for a while now. Zelda has become an annual event so watch for it next year. But check it out early because this was a sold out house. Your gamers will love it!

By the way, I picked up these seats long after ticket sales started and was a little disappointed in only being able to get one behind the other (K,J 87) and at the far right orchestra, just a few seats from the wall aisle. However, I went for them anyway and, while it seemed like they would be poor seats, they were actually very good.

Blue Jays vs Boston Red Sox

Nothing happenned to change my opinion that baseball is a slow and (sorry fans) boring game.

Notwithstanding, baseball can have some moments of excitement and today was no exception. With the game tied, a bad call got some wild crowd action and fortunately did not provide the opportunity for Boston to get a muchly covetted run.

Maybe I'm going to the game for the wrong reason. It seems that baseball is, for some, just another excuse to party. The audience starts to get pretty rowdy at about the 8th inning. Clearly there are a lot of people that aren't put off by the $10 beers.

Overall, the fun really didn't start until the 9th inning. Tied in the 5th, held off for 3 more innings, then after some tense moments and close calls Boston gets a run at the top of the 9th. Come on Jays - you really need to step up !! They did their best and their best hitters came up to the plate, but alas, like Babe Ruth, they struck out and Boston won by one run.

Soulpepper - The Crucible

While an enjoyable play and some fine performances, I can't say that this is my type of play. I couldn't quite get past the dialogue - this is a period piece with soime very old English - the time and period of the Salem with trials in 1692, around whcih the plot revolved. It just didn' t feel genuine to me, but this is due to my own persoal bias, as my husband thoroughly enjooyed the play and he is a big fan of classical theatre. So, depending on where your interests lie, you will have to make your own decision on this one.

By the way, there was an usually large contingent of students at this performance. Clearly an English class, or perhaps a bible study group, felt this was a good way to try to understand the type of hysteria that can wreak havoc on a community when stoked by fear ....

Rotman Social Media Expert Speaker Series - Andrew Keen and Don Tapscott

I had the opportunity to hear Andrew Keen and Don Tapscott debate the topic of Andrew's new book,

asserting that "today’s Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us". The session was moderated by Matt Galloway, but he didn't really have to work too hard as Andrew and Don were keen to jump on each other's statements.

The underlying premise of the book is that people are sharing too much through social media and this will have an impact on relationships and privacy. I think this is based on the constructs of an older generation, of which I am part, where we were brought up to believe that privacy was sacrosanct.

It was proposed that one of the biggest risks in the age of the internet is that there is no hiding from your mistakes. In the past, if you did something stupid it would be forgotten in time. Now, with YouTube and Facebook, your indiscretions can be kept current forever. I would pose that a generation raised with this lack of forgetfulness may become more tolerant of indiscretions because we will all have them recorded somewhere. Think about the past where someone was caught having an affair and was pilloried, and in some cases by people who had similar experiences but had never been discovered.

Another comment was that all this disclosure will have an impact on relationships as relationships are built on getting to know people and, if all the information is out there, then how do you form relationships. Since relationships are built on shared perspectives and values, not the facts and observations or information about people you might find on the internet, I don't see how this relates to relationship building at all.

Andrew suggested that there is too much sharing of personal info on social networking and that the internet will have to adjust and evolve some privacy parameters. Since these things tend to evolve without a specific guiding hand I suggest that the evolution to acceptance of lesser privacy is instead going to continue and that people will become less concerned with privacy. As such, the lack of privacy or the revealing of some secret or transgression will lose the power to destroy relationships, careers or reputations the way that having an affair or a child out of wedlock may have tainted one in the past. Given that we all make mistakes, and that the only thing that differentiated between those that were pilloried in the past and those that were not, was whether they were unfortunate enough to get caught, then the higher chance of being "outed" in the future may lead to greater tolerance overall of common human failings.

As privacy of personal information becomes less important, it will cease to provide others with a tool to be used against them. I hope this greater openness will lead to more tolerance for the mistakes we all make, but in the past were not immortalized and so could be forgotten.