When Bob White first read Half Life, a play about a romance between two residents of an old folks’ home, the story resonated with him for a uniquely personal reason. His own mother lived in a retirement home and he still recalls watching her struggle to express herself at the end of her life.
            Half Life, by Canadian playwright John Mighton, is one of the five main productions that White, artistic director of Alberta Theatre Projects, is mounting this season. He picked it partly because it resonated with him, partly because the much-lauded play fits with ATP’s mandate of producing new Canadian work, and partly because it’s about a subject his audience can relate to.
            “It’s an issue that people are struggling with — aging parents and how to look after them,” he says. “We put these people in retirement homes, these parking lots for death, and we sort of dismiss that these people can have lives.”
            This duality between the characters’ mental and physical decay and their falling in love is central to the play, as are their children’s efforts to deal with the situation. This role reversal — children taking care of their own parents — is also central to the play’s character drama.
            “I’ve been through all that, and it’s really weird, very weird,” says White. “When I read the play, that’s what resonated with me. Many of our audience are going through this with their own parents.”
            Half Life premiered in Toronto to critical acclaim in 2005, and ATP’s version will be its second production. While it’s a tough subject, White says it’s not a gloomy play. “It becomes this uplifting celebration of the human spirit, but without getting sentimental,” he says. “It doesn’t go to the boo-hoo place.”
            The season kicks off October 16 with a play about a serious topic of a different nature — stalking celebrities. The show is Still Desire You, a musical collaboration with singer-songwriter Melanie Doan. It’s framed as a trial for a man who’s been stalking a Doan-like singer and tries to explain his obsession with her. “At first, you think he’s quite reasonable, and you can see how he feels persecuted,” says White. “But there’s a twist. It has a dark edge.”
            Doan’s music is used throughout, fitting a script by Paul Ledoux and David Young. While the pair drew on real-life stories of celebrity stalkers, White says there’s something more universal to the show. “What the play’s about is the obsession with celebrity that we have — like all that fucking Paris Hilton shit this summer — and how we live our lives,” he says. “What is this thing? Why are we so obsessed?”
            In the spring, ATP is remounting its successful production of The Syringa Tree, a one-woman show about a white girl growing up in apartheid-era South Africa, as she slowly comes to realize what’s happening around her. While the play itself is about a bygone era, White says the strength of the characters (all 24 of whom are played by a single actor, Meg Roe) is what keeps people connected to it. “You come to realize it’s about family, life and the bonds you make, and trying to figure out who you are in the middle of this awful situation,” he says.
            With plays like these — not to mention ATP’s perennially popular playRites, a winter festival of new Canadian plays that has long been established as a top showcase for the country’s best new theatre — ATP seems justified in its claim of not serving light fare. So what about Oliver Twist, the company’s Christmas show?
            “It’s very dark, which is kind of scary when you consider that there’ll be thousands of kids there,” White laughs. Unlike the musical based on the Charles Dickens classic, ATP’s adaptation of choice is more faithful to the author’s social conscience. “There’s one poor criminal class that’s kept poor for various reasons, and one wealthy class that’s kept ignorant of that. Without having to stretch it too much, you can look at Calgary and see that.”
            It’s White’s hope that the entire ATP season will make people think. “We want to make sure the shows are smart and (the audience) really digs what we do,” he says. “The audience is sophisticated.”