Local Theatre Northwest play full of life
Jack Grinhaus doesn’t direct all plays at Theatre Northwest, but he is at the helm for the one opening this week. As TNW’s artistic director, he plans the season and often that involves calling in a fellow director for strategic guest appearances. He is personally leading this latest ensemble because, like the actors involved, the script set his mind on fire.
Half Life is the story of elderly people in a nursing home who discover among themselves that sex, love and inspiration are far from expired. It is also the story of the people around those elders, and how looking into the eyes of mortality is both scary and fascinating. Just because it’s the winter of your years doesn’t mean the sun shines any less pleasantly.
The cast was so affected by the script that they travelled from all over the country in order to take on these sensational roles written by a man described as a true genius of storytelling: Canadian writer John Mighton. He has been nominated for two Governor General’s Awards for English Language Drama – one for Scientific Americans and another for The Little Years – and on two other occasions won the big prize. One win was for Possible Worlds, which was later adapted into a film starring Tilda Swinton. Then he won again for Half Life, the play P.G. is about to see.
In between times, Mighton has written other award-winning books on his primary occupation: mathematician. He is the founder of Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies (JUMP), a not-for-profit organization that boosts youth success in math.
He was also the professorial scribe sought out to help young screen writers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on a little project called Good Will Hunting, a film that went on to win multiple Academy Awards.
“On one hand he’s flying around the world meeting world leaders like Desmond Tutu and winning awards for transforming the lives of kids, uplifting entire societies through mathematics breakthroughs in schools, and on the other hand he just writes some of the most amazing plays Canada has ever seen,” said Grinhaus, outlining the compelling genesis of this play.
“Great plays ask great questions. You could do this play in 1,000 years and it would still be relevant. It’s not about a particular war or a particular pop-culture era, it is about those big things in life that all humans think about. He shows us new ways to talk out loud about those thoughts and feelings, and how to laugh with us about that.”
Perhaps it’s because he is a mathematician by trade that Mighton can so sweetly express these big thoughts. He wasn’t steeped in the writing process, he was steeped in the world of numbers and formulas. So when a story tumbles out of him, it arrives like any one of us would have expressed it.
“This isn’t an over-sophisticated writing clinic, this is just a smart observation of us,” Grinhaus said. “It is one of my top all-time Canadian plays I’ve ever laid eyes on. I always told myself, if I had the chance, it was the one play I most wanted to do. Because of the themes of this season and the resources at my disposal for Theatre Northwest this year, it was the time. I am so happy I want to burst.”
The title alone is a ladder of meanings. Half life is, scientifically, the amount of time it takes for an object to half expire in its existence. It’s also a reference to the mid-life crisis so many people experience when they know they’ve reached the halfway point in life. Then there are the complex calculations we make over whether our glass is half empty or half full. All of these things are at once in play in this masterpiece.
Half Life opens with the preview show Thursday night, and will be on at TNW until Apr. 12. Tickets are on sale via the TNW website or in person on at Books & Company.
It stars Linda Gorenson, Alec Willows, Adam Kenneth Wilson, Lauren Brotman, Lisa Dahling, Donna Soares and Chris Ralph.