Toronto Part *gasp* 7!!! *faints*

The trip was amazing, but truly gruelling.

On the very last day we had planned to go to the Zoo. Everyone who had been to the Toronto Zoo told us it's an ABSOLUTE MUST-SEE! It's OUTSTANDING! You HAVE to SEE IT!!!!

Okay, okay. To me one zoo is like the next; wild animals imprisoned in a tiny cage without enough stimulation. Yes, they're safe from predators and poachers and disease. But they're in jail.

ANYWAY! I shouldn't go off on a tangent.

To get to the zoo would involve: a subway ride on one line; transfer to another subway line and ride it to the end; then wait God-knows-how-long for a bus; ride the bus for about 1/2 an hour. Then walk and walk and walk and walk around what is supposedly an ENORMOUS zoo all day. Then wait for the bus; take the bus for... well, you get the point.

At this stage of the game we were nearly dead. I have no idea how many miles we walked. We could have gone to the moon and back, I'm sure. Plus, our last day had high temperatures and the first smoggy haze I'd seen since I got there.

As amazing as the zoo sounded, frankly, we couldn't bear the thought of it. We wanted to stay close to the hotel, so we wandered around the waterfront for awhile.

Toronto sits on the shore of Lake Ontario, one of the Great Lakes. But for the absence of the salt-water smell, you would swear you were on the ocean. This lake is utterly enormous.

The waterfront is developed all along the way; much of it is just pathways, but there are harbours and such as well. We stopped at one area that had shopping, showers, a ballet theatre (!), restaurants, chartered boat rides, the whole bit. I was absorbed in a very cool jewelry store that actually had stuff I'd never seen before. I ended up buying a cracked zircon pendant (the cracks were supposed to be there!) with a silver chain.

After this short trip we had crapped out completely. By noon our son and I were back in the hotel room. The smog may have been aggravating our asthma too -- my son and I both have it, lucky us.

I had forgotten to mention a musical I had seen earlier in the week.

When we first arrived at our hotel, which was situated in the Entertainment District, we unpacked our stuff then decided to wander around the corner for pizza. Well. I turned the corner, and what do I see? A marquee for:

Evil Dead: The Musical

EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

I had watched Evil Dead so many times when it first came out, I probably wore out the tape! It was this campy horror movie that came out in 1981 or so, about five college kids breaking into a cabin in the woods and spending the night. They decided to explore the cellar (of course) and they found a chainsaw, an axe, a ceremonial dagger, and the Necronomicon. Of course, someone reads passages from the Necronomicon out loud. Of course, this raises evil spirits that possess the kids. Of course, the bridge leading to that part of the woods is suddenly broken into bits. Of course, the chainsaw and axe and dagger all come in handy. And of course, there is one survivor who went on to make Evil Dead 2: Still Dead and Army of Darkness, aka Evil Dead 3.

It's a gorefest that takes every stupid aspect of a horror movie and puts it all into one really stupid cult smash hit.

So, I see they've made it into a musical! Woo hooooo!!

At first I just looked at the marquee. A couple of days later I returned to take photos of it. Then I thought, you know, I'm staying right around the corner. Why the heck don't I go?

So I called the box office and bought a seat in The Woods. Seating was named according to how it might correspond with the show. The Woods is the farthest, crappiest seating. The Cabin had slightly better seating. The Cellar better yet. And the Splatter Zone and Splatter Zone Deluxe were exactly what you would imagine. They handed ponchos out to the people in the Splatter Zones. And boy, did they need them.

This show was like everything else in Toronto, utterly outstanding. The talent was fantastic -- these were real singers and dancers and actors. This was not like the community theatre we have here, where just anybody gets a part. These were professionals, and it showed.

The show played on the campiness of the original movie. For example, when the kids were trying to escape and they came to the bridge only to find the bridge was out, some stage hand shoved the bridge onto the stage (it was about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide) with yellow "Danger" tape wrapped around it. The cast all shrieked, "THE BRIDGE IS OUUUUT!!" You had to be there.

When the technical stuff mattered, they made it happen. There was one scene where the guy whacks the girl's head off with a chainsaw; they pulled a screen down on the scene, and you could see their shadows, and I swear, the chainsaw swinging and the head flying and the blood splattering was incredibly done. Click on the link earlier, to see that scene. There is a video running on the home page of the site that has that scene in it.

Near the end when almost all of the cast has been turned into Candarian demons and they are all being slaughtered, the blood was hysterical. There were literally FOUNTAINS of it spraying all over creation. If this show ever returns I will HAVE to sit in the Splatter Zone. :D

And that, my friends, is that.

What a fabulous trip.