Tuesday People are Full of Grace


Reviewed 4/21/06

Mitch Albom’s bestselling influential reminiscence Tuesdays with Morrie is a pithy carpe diem that is filled with choice observations and a lifetime’s worth of wisdom. Many who have read it have taken to heart the earnestness, simplicity, and common sense that it contains. Morrie Schwartz, the Brandeis University Sociology prof stricken with ALS, reminds his former pupil Mitch after a sixteen-year absence of the basics that he has forgotten in his harried life. Flying from his overfull life as a sports writer in Detroit every Tuesday, Mitch learns about life from his dying mentor. The book is a quick, fulfilling read. Transferring this type of emotionally overwhelming book from page to stage can sometimes result in a watering down or a flattening out of the message into a series of packaged sentiments. Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has helped Albom skirt some of the possible pitfalls, but it’s hard to put so many of Morrie’s observations into a two-person play involving direct interaction with the audience without it occasionally slipping into over-sentimentality. However, under the effective direction of the veteran helmer Samantha K. Wyer, Arizona Theatre Company’s 90-minute, intermissionless production flows smoothly and presentationally while still hitting all of the emotional marks to a very satisfying conclusion.

Wyer and her scenic designer Robin Sanford Roberts brilliantly create a revolve with stations representing the various stages of Morrie’s illness, each barely visible through translucent drapes like specters of the inevitable. Wyer also keeps the dialogue and requisite expositional material fluid while allowing her actors (Mark Chamberlin as Mitch and Clayton Corzatte as Morrie) to develop their relationships with each other and the audience.

Chamberlin is good as the uptight, self-involved Mitch. His character’s arc is strongly handled from awkward student to enlightened and grieving adult. He plays even the most sentimental work straight, keeping the show in focus for it. Better still is Corzatte as the self-effacing and frank Morrie. With his mixed Yiddish-Brookline accent and his physicality from exuberance through deterioration, Corzatte is very believable and affecting. The two work well together, recreating the series of Tuesday meetings and giving a shorthand version of the lessons learned in the book.

T. Greg Squires’ lighting complements well Roberts’ wonderful set, and Kish Finnegan’s costumes are simple recreations of what those who read the book could easily envision the two characters wearing.

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