In Development

Uncertainty Principle by Sharon Bala

Sharon Bala’s bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, won the 2020 Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award and the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, was short listed for several awards, and is in translation in four languages. In 2017 she won the Writers’ Trust/ McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story “Butter Tea at Starbucks” and had a second story on the long list. Sharon is a member of The Port Authority, a St. John’s writing group. Visit her at: sharonbala.com

Uncertainty Principle is a full-length family play with possible speculative elements that follows a non-linear timeline. Exploring themes of memory, truth, and reality, it aims to leave the audience with more questions than answers. The story revolves around the O’Reagans: divorced parents JUDY and BERT, who are in their early 60s, and their children ELLEN and JOHN who are in their 20s.

When Judy returns from a trip, she can’t recall taking to discover that her home is empty, her husband has re-married, and the kids have grown up and moved out, she is horrified. Most frightening of all: who is this older woman in the mirror? The doctors diagnose amnesia. Her daughter thinks she’s faking it. But Judy knows the truth: she’s time travelled five years into the future.