Assisted Suicide play at the Capitol Theatre
By Contributor
The Capitol Theatre is stepping out to host a hard-hitting, sentimental and funny one-person play about dying – based mostly on a true story.
Friday (March 24) at 8 p.m. Capitol presents “Getting To Room Temperature”.
At 93-and-a-half, playwright Arthur Milner’s healthy and active mother Rose took a turn for the worse.
He accompanied her to the doctor where her request for assistance in dying was respectfully refused. Rose’s decline and polite quest for euthanasia takes us on an emotional journey into grudgingly explored territory.
“(This is) a play for everyone who’s going to die or knows someone who will,” the media release said.
This play is about end-of-life issues in Canada and the right to die It’s based on a true story and promises audiences laughter through tears.
Playwright, theatre director and journalist Arthur Milner enjoys a long association with Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC), where he was resident playwright and artistic director.
His published plays include Masada, Zero Hour, Learning to Live with Personal Growth, Crusader of the World and It’s Not a Country, It’s Winter. His play, Facts, opened at GCTC in 2010, toured the West Bank and Israel (in Arabic), ran in London, U.K., for a month, and was produced by the acclaimed Semaver Kumpanya in Istanbul (in Turkish).
In May 2014 at GCTC, he directed the world premiere of George F. Walker’s The Burden of Self-Awareness. He is a featured columnist with Inroads, the Canadian Journal of Opinion. He shares his time between the National Capital Region, and Toronto.
Robert Bockstael is known to millions as the sociopathic Corporal Brian Fletcher from his years on CBC’s North of 60. He is also much loved for his portrayals of Jim Flett on Sullivan’s Wind at My Back and Mr. Dupree on Disney’s Famous Jett Jackson. During his 35 years in the industry, Robert has worked as an actor in theatres across Canada.
He is also a director, and was Associate to the Artistic Director of GCTC in Ottawa and a founding member of the New Theatre of Ottawa. He has been a leading actor in 7 television series and dozens of films, and has provided voices for numerous animated series.
Mr. Bockstael makes his home in Ottawa and is an Artistic Associate at The Acting Company. He is currently at work on his first novel.
Canada is currently embroiled in a conversation about the right to die. Inspired by this debate, our own experiences, our need to laugh in the face of death, The Room Temperature Collective has set out to develop Milner’s beautiful exploration of the death of a parent.
With humour, wisdom, irony, and a deep connection to lives gone before, Arthur Milner’s new play invites audiences into an honest and wry conversation about aging and dying in Canada.
There will be a talkback session following the performance with Robert Bockstael, Arthur Milner, Kim Bater from Kalein Hospice Society and Jane DiGiacomo from the Nelson & District Hospice Society.
Photo Caption: Getting To Room Temperature is set for Friday at 8 p.m. in the Capitol Theatre. — Submitted photo
