Mohonk Mountain Stage Company presents John Mighton's HALF LIFE at Unison Arts
by M.R. Smith
Although there is ample writing talent in the area, Crawfis was interested
in finding a well–written piece by a Canadian writer, mostly
because Canadian playwrights are “something we don’t usually
get to hear about.” After some online investigation, she came
across Half Life by Canadian playwright, educator, and mathematician
John Mighton, winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Governor General’s
Literary Award. Something of a renaissance man, Mighton got his degree
in philosophy, is now an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto,
founder of the math tutoring program JUMP, and a multiple award–winner
for playwriting, with Half Life being remounted at CanStage after enjoying
a successful run at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 2005.
Half Life, directed by Crawfis, and performed by company members Paul
Coleman, Elizabeth Barrows, Bill Connors, Ruth Berg, Douglas Woolley,
Barbara McMahon Scanlon, and Rosemarie Navarra, takes place at a home
for the elderly, where its two main characters find themselves re–imagining
a forgotten love affair that might or might have not been, an idea
based on real experience for the author.
“My mother was in a home for five years,” said Mighton, “and
there was a couple who fell in love and decided to get married. They
were both in wheelchairs, and had difficulty communicating. You could
see the progression of their marriage; all of it happening in an accelerated
form. So the idea partly came from that.”
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