By Michael Ryval
More than a decade ago, I chanced to read an obituary in The Globe and Mail, which covered the life and times of a noted benefactor of the arts in Toronto. He had fled Germany after Kristallnacht, the pogrom which left a devastating impact on German Jewry and lucked into the post-war boom that drove Toronto. “Aha, here’s the makings of a play,” I thought. Thus, emboldened by the success of my first play, The Last Days of Rachel Samuel, I began to research that period of history and gradually added the observations of various people I’d encountered in my professional life as a freelance journalist and even family members. Then I put together a first draft. Many years later, and after multiple revisions, and even a reading held on Zoom, during Covid, I had another stroke of luck. The Centre for Arts and Culture, headed by Cantor David Rosen, granted The Realm of Possibility its premiere on May 8th, at 7 p.m., at Holy Blossom Temple.
A dramatic two-hander, The Realm of Possibility is a portrayal of Alfred Mann, a highly successful Toronto real estate developer and patron of the arts who narrowly escaped the Holocaust and found a new home in Canada. All his life, Mann longed to bury his past as a Jew and a survivor of the Kristallnacht pogrom. But his son, Mark, a successful portrait painter who embraced his Jewish heritage late in life, was there to remind him of the preciousness of their Jewish roots.
I do hope that you can join us and witness a staged reading of a play that is at times dramatic, and other times comedic. Allan Price and Daniel Krolik, two very seasoned actors, under the helm of director Mark Cassidy, will execute multiple roles, including scenes where Mark Mann portrays his father as a young man, and Alfred plays his own father, as the two men grapple with the cruel past. Gradually, they reach an understanding and acceptance of a common heritage.
