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Second of two Authors’ Nights coming up at BookLore in Orangeville next week

May 4, 2017   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Presented co-operatively by BookLore and Theatre Orangeville, the second of two Authors’ Nights is taking place at the Orangeville Town Hall Opera House on Tuesday, May 16. Increasingly popular, audiences in Orangeville love the contact with authors, the Q and A that comes after their brief readings of their works and the discussion about writing specifically and generally.

All writers have something in common and much that differs amongst them, being, as they are, individual walking microcosms of, at least, the worlds they create. So, there will always be something else to discover through these conversations, however many authors come to grace that stage over the years.

The admission cost to these evenings goes toward the New Play Development program that Theatre Orangeville runs to promote and encourage new works by Canadian playwrights, both established and in the early stages of career. It is one of the many programs that establishes Theatre Orangeville’s innovative approach and enthusiasm for theatre arts and Canadian talent. This has kept our theatre in good standing with an impressive reputation across the country.

The two authors with us this time around are Claire Cameron and Elan Mastai.

“I wanted to be 4% Neanderthal! I was so disappointed with only 2.5%!” declared Claire Cameron on a CBC Radio One interview earlier this week.

In the last 10 years, scientists have re -assessed Neanderthals not as being a primitive people but having a brain capacity 10% larger than ours and having interbred with homo sapiens. Thus, there is the surprising presence of their DNA in our own.

Ms. Cameron had discovered her lineage through an examination of her own DNA: the possible detection of such a connection can be now offered.

Her original inspiration for the story came from a hike in Niagara when she happened upon an ancient limestone cave and thought about the real life of a Neanderthal women struggling to survive in such conditions and the life that might follow. Her research combined with her writer’s instincts led her to produce the story of Girl, the Neanderthal women, to whom a modern archaeologist, a pregnant women, becomes tied, as she is the one to discover Girl’s bones. At a distance of 40 millennia, they share the experience of pregnancy, birth and the  “extremes to which [early motherhood] can drive young mothers.”

Script writer Elan Mastai, best known for his project, The F-word, which won a Canadian Screen Award, dived into his first novel, All Our Wrong Todays, by asking the same question so many environmentalists are asking: “Why is this world not the clean, pollution-free, airborne vehicles, peaceful society of the sci-fi writing of the ‘50’s and 60’?”

Having mulled over the possibilities within the question, the final push of inspiration came while he was walking his dog: a quirk of time travel gone wrong propels the hero, Tom Barren, into our present day from his present day that looks just like the perfect version of the future those optimistic authors predicted. Horrors when he realizes how bad is our present day alternative of having achieved nothing by way of improving our lot.

However, resting assured that humanity is intrinsically flawed, Mr. Mastai allows that the utopian future from which Tom has fallen also suffers from many  failings, always with the major disappointments landing on the shoulders of the common folk.

So, here is the big question: does Tom stay here with all the filth and injustice but with an energy and vibrance that struggle births or return to his own world which might considerably duller?

Come to the Authors’ Night and join in the discussions with these two fascinating writers. On Tuesday, May 16 at 7:00 p.m. at the Opera House.

Tickets are available at the theatre Box Office or at BookLore. There is a reception after the talk catered by Lavender Blue, a chance to meet and greet the writers and buy their books.

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