About the Play:

Winner 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Half Life is a full-length drama by John Mighton. What shines through when memory fades away? This timely and relevant play is a moving meditation on identity, aging, and the nature of memory. Half Life examines the lives of people who live in an extended care facility, and their children, who must come to terms with their own roles in their parents' lives.

Half Life explores the nature of memory and aging and the universal power of love with humour and tenderness. Two elderly nursing home residents, Clara and Patrick, meet and fall in love, rekindling what might have been a wartime romance. Patrick was a mathematician and code-breaker, Clara is a beautiful innocent with a fading memory. Had they previously met somewhere else under different circumstances? Will their adult children be able to come to terms with their own feelings as their elderly parents fall passionately in love? Half Life is as much a sophisticated story about joy, suffering, and memory, as it is a humorous and subversive story about the triumph of love over age, imprisonment, and uptight adult children.

Half Life premiered in 2005 at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Ontario to rave reviews and full houses and swept Canada's major theatre prizes. It toured Ottawa and Quebec before a successful run in Scotland and was picked up as part of its subscription season by CanStage, Canada's largest not-for-profit theatre. The CanStage production also played Winnipeg and Vancouver and then Australia's Melbourne Theater Festival.

Cast: 4 female, 3 male

What people say:

"...a carefully wrought, deeply moving study of love, old age and memory that deserves to have a long life on world stages." — Variety

"...an unusually honest drama about love among elderly people." — The Guardian (UK)

"An unforgettable experience that is a gain, in every sense of the word, for the Canadian dramatic canon." — The Globe and Mail

"This profoundly moving love story portrays the relationship between two nursing-home residents in a way that is unique, enlightened and virtually flawless. A play about remembering, about forgetting and ultimately about hope, Half Life holds up a mirror to all of us, who will one day face old age." — Governor General Jury's Comments

"Mighton's most accessible play ... beautifully told." — Stage and Page

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.