About the Play:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

Body and Soul has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues.

Body and Soul is a full-length drama by John Mighton. To what extent is our desire conditioned? And what forms will our desire take when we are given the means to simulate and experience? Body and Soul travels to a place where love, biology and technology meet, with surprising results.

Body and Soul is a dark comedy that uses an erotic fascination with corpses and the technological simulation of fantasies to explore the fulfillment of desire. Jane is a necrophiliac who has found heaven as a cosmetician in a funeral home. Henry is a married man who is bored with the attentions of his wife, Sally, and volunteers for virtual reality experiments known as "Teledildonics" to fulfill his Shangri-la sexual fantasies. The result is quirky, offbeat, black humour with some deliciously constructed laugh lines and comic situations.

Body and Soul premiered in 1993 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and had a separate run in 1994 at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been mounted at professional theatres and performed in college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"John Mighton's Body and Soul ... took a fascinating look at love, marriage, sex, and death. Taking place within laboratories, funeral homes, talk show sets, and a mundane suburban home, the play questions the notion of desire. One of the biggest questions addressed was how new forms of technology can be designed to simulate the things we want most." — The Varsity (University of Toronto)

About the Playwright:

John Mighton, OC is an acclaimed Canadian playwright. His plays have been performed across Canada, as well as in Europe, Japan, and the United States, and have won a number of national awards including the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama, the Dora Award, the Chalmers Award and the Siminovitch Prize. He is also a professor of mathematics, and is the founder of JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies), an educational charity providing free tutoring to elementary-level students. He consulted on the mathematical models for the film Good Will Hunting, in which he acted a small role as a graduate student in mathematics. In 2010, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.