Michael Healey
The Play (not the controversy) Is The ThingMichael's Shavian examination of right wing Canadian politics could be a delightful surprise.
by Miles Potter
Last year I was listening to my radio one morning in my kitchen when I heard Michael Healey's name mentioned. Now this was CBC, and while it's not totally unusual for artists to show up on the CBC, it's not usually on the national news. I tried to pay closer attention while cooking or cleaning or whatever I was doing in the kitchen; I live in the country when not away working, and I don't get newspapers so I'm often woefully out of the loop when it comes to the theatre news. But hearing Michael's name on the news made me think I'd better listen up; the report was almost over, so I only got a partial version of the story.
So I went and booted up my steam driven (it seems) dial-up internet to see if I could find out what Michael was up to. I got an article from somewhere laying out the bones of the story; I gleaned the facts that he had written an apparently controversial play and his “home” theatre, the Tarragon, didn't want to do it. And so he had quit. Interesting. I was actually in a kind of conversation with another theatre at the time, and I suggested that this would be a great time for some theatre to step in and grab it, which was probably foolhardy as I knew virtually nothing about the play, but in any case that particular conversation went nowhere anyway.
