It’s not quite improv, and it’s not always scripted theatre, but that’s okay—Wrecking Ball seems pretty comfortable thinking outside the box. We checked in with co-host Jiv Parasram before their one-night-only show at the Storefront Theatre on July 27. It was
Wrecking Ball’s eighteenth show since 2004, and this installment focused on “the big story,” as Parasram puts it.
They were inspired by the photos that circulated on Toronto social media earlier this month of a dead racoon left on Yonge Street for hours waiting for Animal Control to pick it up. Cheeky Torontonians created an
insta-shrine to the critter, but the display left Parasram feeling both amused and disturbed. He says that, when the racoon story broke, “People got criticised for not talking about the Pan Am games. But then nobody was talking about Bill C-51, and the in the same week, we had several police shootings.” The Wrecking Ball event is christened #DeadCoonTO, and will examine the divide between what Parasram calls the “living world and the dead world. In the dead world, there are certain people, and areas of the world, where people die and disappear and that’s how it is. And then there’s the living world, where it’s astounding that bad things happen and it’s a big deal.”
Wrecking Ball is run completely by volunteers, and performed in donated spaces. Any profit is donated to the Actors Fund of Canada, which support artists experiencing hardship. Performers are only given a week to rehearse their pieces, which are inspired by the headlines and translated into a blend of styles—Parasram says that previous events have included music, scripted theatre, multimedia pieces, and readings. Since their last installment, Wrecking Ball has also included Time Bomb, a segment encouraging audience members to come up and “rant” for one minute on a topic of their choice. “The key to use it as a place for people to come and get a bit angry, and talk about what’s going on with the city.”
Wrecking Ball will likely follow this performance with one in the fall, devoted to the federal election. “We do the event based on when it needs to happen,” Parasram says. They’re thinking about trying to make it a national event, with performances in cities like Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. “We’re interested in artists of all different kinds, in people who want to be part of the conversation.”