Is the Church of Scientology Harassing Torontonians? Extremities gets Emotional Lift with Local Production: TorontoIAM

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Torontonians Protest Church of Scientology’s Practices

A recent post on blog TO by Roger reports on the protest outside the Church of Scientology’s Toronto headquarters, where about 150 protesters gathered on Sunday. Most of the protesters in front of the Yonge and St. Mary offices wore masks to hide their identities “to hide protester identities so prevent anyone from being singled out and harassed.” Torontonian Gerg Haglund says that “The Church of Scientology is a cult of surveillance” and that he and his family have been targets of their harassment. Haglund says they’ve followed him home, picked through his trash, and tried to get his wife fired from the school board.

Haglund showed up to the protest without a mask. “I didn't organize the protest and I'm not running it,” said Haglund. “I showed up to show them I'm not ‘The Who’ they're trying to single out.” He stopped protesting a few years ago due to their aggressive behavior, states Roger in his post. The Toronto protest “was one of about 100 held simultaneously around the world,” with numbers totaling over 10,000.  In Canada, a 2001 national census “reported a total of 1,525 Scientologists nationwide.” According to Haglund, their Toronto numbers are dwindling. “There's about fifteen members in their Toronto offices now. In my day, there were thirty.” Rev. Yvette Shank, president of the church in Canada, called the protesters “bigots” and guilty of “religious hate crimes” in a recent Toronto Sun article.

Raptors Run out of Luck against Spurs

On Raptor’s Talk.com we get a review of the Raptors’ loss against the Spurs last night. Coach Sam Mitchell is away due to his Father-in-Law’s recent death and his absence was felt. “The Raptors shot more jumpers than they usually do. Moon didn’t even dribble the ball in the direction of the basket.” Bosh was the same. “Three times he had either Stoudamire or Vaughn covering him, and he [forced] a jumper at the top of the key,” bouncing each off the rim.

Even with Calderon’s career high of 27 points, “the Raptors offense laboured.” The Spurs eliminated the passing lanes, and forced Calderon to score. Offensively, the Raptors played slightly better this game than the last one against the Spurs. That time, “Bosh was also neutralized and Calderon was made the scorer, except this time around, the Spurs shot about 50% from the field.” Last time they were a little over 30%. Our blogger states in the post that the Raptors were simply “lucky to walk out of the Alomo with a win” in that last game. This time, “the Spurs were lead by an incredible performance by Ginobili, who could do no wrong from anywhere on the court… in 39 minutes, he scores 34 points, grabs 15 rebounds, dishes 6 dimes and steals the ball twice.”

Local Theatre brings new Emotional Spin to Mastrosimone’s Extremities

From Now Toronto’s Stage Blog, Jon Kaplan posts a review of surface/underground theatre’s production of William Mastrosimone’s play Extremeties. The play features a woman named Marjorie, who “turns the tables on Raul, a would-be rapist who's been stalking her and her two roommates and has broken into their country house.” The story becomes a contest “among the three women, who offer different views of how to handle the trussed-up Raul.” There a lot of “talking-heads debate than real action in the second half of the play, and the capture of Raul is something of a theatrical cheat.”

The new group, surface/underground theatre, brings “emotional spin” to the material and an acting ensemble “that really connects.” Shannon Taylor 's Marjorie is “a trusting woman who becomes tensely wound as she becomes frustrated in dealing with her attacker.” Nick Abraham's Raul is a “teasing manipulator” who works the three women believably, “trying to set them against each other by trading on cunningly revealed secrets.” There are some issues with the writing itself, writes Kaplan in his post, but director Peter Pasyk’s staging of the production “overrides many of the script's problems with some fine ensemble work.” Extremities runs until February 16, with a portion of tickets sales going to Interval House , a centre for abused women and children.

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