Jhana, is a beautiful eighteen-year-old who lives with her mother Maddie and their boarder Bill, a sometime poet. Jhana’s father, King, shows up partway through the first act and it is his presence for the first time in a long time in this unusual family that really galvanizes all four of the characters into action.

King is an Elvis impersonator, getting sick and tired of doing the same old song and dance. Jhana is mentally handicapped and working at her first “job” in a workshop for disabled people where she puts four screws in a bag and then another four screws in another bag and so on. In her mind she is on stage at Maple Leaf Gardens singing and strutting her stuff, just like her father does. Maddie is trying to keep it together while working full time as a teacher and as a mother, too busy to admit to her own loneliness. Bill is harbouring all sorts of feelings for Maddie that he is afraid to act on.

While this is a play about the power of family and love, it is finally a play about self-destruction and creation. At its heart is Jhana, whose character begs the question whether the other characters, in their own ways, are any less handicapped. She’s good company—funny, driven, passionate and yearning for the same things those around her yearn for—if they can get over their preconceptions about the mentally handicapped and give her the space to achieve her dreams.

The play came out of the author’s decade-long involvement working with mentally handicapped adults and children as a life skills instructor. Re-released in a revised and updated edition, it is Joan MacLeod’s first full-length play, receiving more than twenty international productions over the past two decades.

Multiple Betty Mitchell, Chalmer’s, Dora ,and Governor General’s Award-winning author Joan MacLeod grew up in North Vancouver and studied Creative Writing at both the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.Now an internationally celebrated star of the world of the theatre, MacLeod developed her finely honed playwriting skills during seven seasons as playwright-in-residence at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. She turned her hand to opera with her libretto for The Secret Garden, which won a Dora Award. She has had many radio dramas produced by CBC Stereo Theatre, including Hand of God, a one-hour drama adapted from her play Jewel. She has also written numerous scripts for film and television productions.Translated into eight languages, her work has been extensively produced around the world. Multiple simultaneous productions of her hit play Shape of a Girl toured internationally for four years, including a sold-out run in New York. Her play Amigo’s Blue Guitar won the 1991 Governor General’s Drama Award. Her Governor General’s Award nominations include one in 1996 for The Hope Slide / Little Sister and one in 2009 for Another Home Invasion.Talon has also published her 2000, Gracie, The Valley, Toronto, Mississippi, and Homechild.MacLeod also writes prose and poetry, which has been published in a wide variety of literary journals. She also teaches Creative Writing at the University of Victoria.

Joan MacLeod's profile page

• Long-listed, ReLit Award for Poetry

“His poetry addresses the limitless discussion of the boundaries between the personal and the political.”
– National Post