Tuesdays With Morrie
Winnipeg Jewish Theatre
September 19 to September 29
WJT’s staging of the much-produced play Tuesdays With Morrie offers a deep friendship, life lessons, and a powerful confrontation with dying, death and grief.
Sports journalist Mitch Albom was at loose ends in 1995 when he decided to look up his favourite college professor, Morrie Schwartz. As an undergraduate in the 1970s, Albom had a strong friendship with Schwartz, and took all his courses. Albom promised to stay in touch, but he didn’t get around to it. Then he learned that Schwartz was suffering from ALS, and felt he had to call him. ALS is a degenerative disease that was already restricting Schwartz’s mobility, but he welcomed Albom into his home for a visit, which led to a series of conversations.
Schwartz encouraged all his visitors to look into their own lives, and discover values and meaning. He taught about the value of giving, not taking. Albom asked why, when people came to try to offer comfort or cheer him up, he always offered advice and wisdom to his visitors. Schwartz explained, “Taking just makes me feel like I’m dying. Giving makes me feel like I’m alive.”
Albom was profoundly influenced by all he learned from Morrie, and began to find opportunities to support others.He felt he developed a new empathy. The idea for making their story into a book came to Albom as a way to raise funds to deal with Schwartz’s medical bills. Albom’s ambitions for the book were modest, but the book became a bestseller. With sales in the millions, Tuesdays With Morrie was adapted for stage and screen and, more recently, Albom has created a podcast.
Director Mariam Bernstein, well-known to WJT audiences for her acting as Dr. Ruth and other prominent roles, brings together David Sklar and veteran Winnipeg actor Nicholas Rice, reviewed in the Free Press as a gifted storyteller in his five-star rated Fringe show, A Side of Rice.
WJT’s production has a special feature – WJT has partnered with the ALS Society of Manitoba to draw awareness and raise funds. School groups will attend performances, learning about the illness as well as taking in Morrie’s wisdom.