Half Life

by John Mighton

“Mighton’s most accessible play…beautifully told.”—Stage and Page

Two nursing home residents rekindle what might have been a wartime romance. The award-winning author of Possible Worlds brings us this poetic and moving meditation on identity, aging and the nature of memory. What shines through when memory fades away? John Mighton is a Dora, Chalmers and Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama winner.

Genres: Plays, Drama

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

John Mighton, OC is a Canadian author and mathematician. He is the founder of JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigies), a charitable organization that works to educate students in mathematics. He is the author of The Myth of Ability (2003) and The End of Ignorance (2007). Mighton is also a playwright, and has been the recipient of two Governor General Awards for his plays which include Possible Worlds, The Little Years, Body & Soul, Scientific Americans, A Short History of Night, and Half Life.

Reviews

[Julian Munds · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's a play that's been overly edited. I'd imagine it quite boring to watch. The characters move through the plot with zero impulse. The writing is didactic. It both relies on realism and eschews it at the same time with in the rules of realism.

[Lillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sweet little play about a pair of residents at an assisted living facility who insist on getting married. So, why are their children so opposed to it?
Most of the play does run smoothly but there are a couple of confusing bits, hence the 4 star rating. Otherwise, it's something I wouldn't mind seeing on stage or performing in.

[Lisa Lederer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this play for the university course "Aging in Contemporary Fiction und Film" and liked it so much that I chose to write my termpaper on the role of forgetting in Half Life. I was fascinated by the theme and how it contrasts forgetting in people to forgetting in machines; the first one is considered a bad thing and the latter necessary for machines to seem human. Thought about it a lot

[mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the depressing subject matter, this is a more pleasant story than I was expecting. Well-written, but may have benefitted from a little comic relief here and there to help get away from the sometimes too-tragic sentiment behind it. A good production could do really great things with this though. 3.5 stars.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Mighton considers aging and its discontents in this sometimes moving tale of two divorcees bonding over their visits to a senior care facility where each has placed a parent. The seniors are not written within the stereotypes of popular culture, but rather have strongly individuated personalities and specific issues not normally associated with aging.

[Kaiya Cade]

so far so good