[I tell her] “golf is sacred. Holy. Sacrosanct.” I like that. Sacrosanct. So she tells me about this article she read, about the attitude of the average middle-aged guy toward the game of golf…Anyway, according to Darlene, the idea behind this stupid article is that at a certain age, men give up on sex and spend all their time and energy on golf instead. To which I asked, So what’s your point? That didn’t go down so well. (Jack in Act I)
The landscape of middle-aged male bravado and angst that Eugene Stickland populates here with Calgary oilmen and their romantic difficulties has been visited before—by John Updike, Richard Ford, and other prose writers of the past generation. But rarely has it been visited in dramatic form with the combination of broad humor and gentle wit that Stickland brings to this new comedy.
Midlife is being published in conjunction with its world premiere as part of Alberta Theatre Projects playRites Festival, February/March 2002.