Lovers of quality theatre have been blessed once again, this time with John Mighton's The Little Years, playing at the usually Shakespeare-oriented, and more recently, musical-obsessed Stratford Festival. Anyone who saw the Dora-Award-winning, profoundly moving Half Life, about men and women sinking into Alzheimer's, knows what a gifted, thoughtful artist Mighton is. How fascinating to see a brilliant mathematician — who has inspired tens of thousands of students to grasp the beauty and importance of numbers — turn his fine skills to live theatre with the same awesome originality and insight.
Most theatre cannot survive a one-line, TV Guide-type description of its plot. Take Death of a Salesman: "an aging man kills himself because he cannot keep up his mortgage payments." One could just as easily brush off Mighton's present re-structuring of his decades-old play by describing it so: "A smart teenaged girl, obsessed with math, is driven to near-madness by her mother's preference for her younger brother." But like Arthur Miller's classic play, Mighton's is so much more than its plot: it is a study of sexism, the crushing impact of bad teaching and the deep effect one generation can have on another.
If anything, the title of this wonderful play, exquisitely directed by the fine Chris Abraham and magnificently performed by its small cast of eight, including some of the best actors working at Stratford — and all of Canada — today (Yanna McIntosh, Evan Buliung and the astoundingly-good Irene Poole in the lead role of Kate), is so subtle that it demands explanation: The Little Years was inspired by a quotation from the writings of the Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius in the second century A.D.: "… man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth."
One watches the teenaged years of young Kate, as her mother plays favourites with her children. Her teachers and principals deny her brilliance and cripple her dreams, and eventually her sanity and entire life, and your heart sinks: how many thousands — no, millions — of young people, as intelligent as Kate, have been literally destroyed by their society, even in the purportedly enlightened 20th century North America? And does it ever stop?
So, the men in the play become internationally-revered poets and artists, while the far-more-creative and wise Kate is pushed into menial jobs, despite her immsense potential.
This magnificent work of art is not merely a feminist screed; it is a haunting, heartbreaking look at what schools so often do to their students of either gender. This is a beautiful play, perfectly staged and performed. It is worth the 90-minute drive to Stratford alone, even if you do not catch the far flashier, often shallow plays on the bigger stages around the town. Just look behind the Avon Theatre to find the small, modest, 150-seat Studio Theatre.
You've got until Sept. 24 to catch it. As a former university and high school teacher, I was shaken to my core.
The Little Years, Stratford Festival, 1-800-567-1600. Runs until Sept. 24
Allan Gould is Post City Magazines’ theatre critic. He has a Ph.D. in english and theatre from York University and has written over 40 books. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Chatelaine, en Route, Canadian Business, Good Times and Financial Post. He is married with two children. Aside from his family, his major passions are theatre and film, because they enrich life with pleasure and meaning.