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Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Orono Weekly Times - 9 ELDORADO Continued from page 5 Hayter incorporates real historical people into the play, including the Labine brothers, Dr. Pochon, and Canada's wartime Minister of Munitions, C.D. Howe. Pochon worked in the laboratories of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie in Paris, and came to Port Hope to oversee the radium processing plant. Having similar scientific interests, one might expect that Hayter would be sympathetic to Dr. Pochon. But instead, he uses the character of the doctor as a warning about the pitfalls of embracing new discoveries without a critical eye. "Pochon is like a lot of scientists and doctors at the beginning of the 20th Century. He is blinded to the negative side of radiation. That's what happens with any new medical technology or drug, people get blinded by its positive effects, and they don't pay any attention to the harm or the side effects," cautions Hayter. "Towards the end of the play, Pochon talks about the fact that he feels almost as though he's been drunk, intoxicated with this idea that radiation is going to make the world a better place, and all of a sudden with the dropping of the bomb, he sobers up." As if radioactivity wasn't enough, Port Hope also played a role in the Manhattan Project, which ultimately developed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending World War II. "The news that they had been helping to work on the bomb, at that time it was mostly a positive thing because it helped end the war," notes Hayter. "Although it killed many people, it saved Canadian soldiers; it saved all kinds of people. Port Hope felt pride about its contribution towards ending the war." Hayter says that he hopes the play entertains as well as enlightens the audience. "In terms of historical enlightenment, I think there is a level of ignorance about the history behind the current situation in Port Hope. So I hope one thing the play will do is make people understand the history better, that it's not just black and white." In terms of emotional enlightenment, Hayter has already seen the play have a healing effect. "I did a reading from the play at Furby House Books in Port Hope at the end of May," recalls the playwright. "I just read some of the scenes. But afterwards, a woman came up to me and said, 'I hope you know that all of the leaders of the different factions in Port Hope, for and against, were all here tonight.' She said that when she arrived at the reading, she thought that it was going to erupt into a fight. So, she said, she watched people's faces, and as they were listening to the story, they were kind of drawn into it, and there was no fighting at the end. They were drawn into it, they were interested and curious." "I hope the play can help people," stresses Hayter. "I hope it can help the community heal, because as an outsider, I've been very aware of how sensitive and how tense people are around this issue." "I tried to do my best to be balanced about it. I depicted a period when radiation and science were going in the public's eye from being a very positive thing to being something that people were a lot more suspicious about, which is an era we are in now," he adds. But Eldorado Town is more than just a cautionary tale. "A play has to entertain as well as move people," he says. As the director, Winslow agrees, sayings he has tried to balance the way scientific and historic information is presented, keeping the audience engaged with songs and dance, and visual interest. While a certain amount of scientific information is necessary in the play, it is "bal- photo by Wayne Eardley Eldorado Town's Cam McGinnis (played by Tim Walker of Peterborough) in the lab. anced off by the personal stories," notes Winslow. "Like the story of Cam McGinnis, the worker who gets sick in the play, his relationship with the scientist Pochon, and the relationship between Cam and his wife." The fictional character of Cam is used to illustrate the ill effects of radiation on an individual and his family. Cam develops lymphoma. In real life, as an oncologist, Hayter knows how the illness manifests itself, and thought it was important to include that in the play. "It's very personal," says Winslow. "It's a human story as well as an historical one. We're very respectful and sensitive to what the community has gone through, with issues like radioactivity, and worries about health issues. But it is a history that you don't want to forget." The gala opening of the play is Thursday, July 1st at 6 pm. Performances run to July 24th, Tuesday to Saturday, with an added performance Monday, July 19. Tickets are available from the theatre's box office by calling 1-800814-0055, via email at boxoffice@4thlinetheatre.on.ca or online at www.4thlinetheatre.on.ca.