After learning he would die from Lou Gehrig’s disease, Morris Schwartz went outside only to see kids playing in the street and hear birds singing around him. He wanted to shout at them, to make them stop, because he was going to die.
When the kids keep playing and the birds keep singing, Schwartz comes to the realization that the world does not revolve around him, which became the cornerstone for his philosophy: live life the best he can right up until he dies.
Schwartz’s story, made famous by the best-selling book “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, is coming to stages in the Flathead Valley on April 11 and April 18. Veteran actor and radio personality Allen Secher takes on the familiar role of the philosophical Brandeis University professor and actor Mark Ford plays Albom.
During the last two years of his life, Schwartz taught lessons about life and death, illuminating them with his own experiences. And every Tuesday, Albom, a successful sportswriter in Detroit, would fly to Boston to listen to Schwartz’s end-of-life lessons.
Secher and Ford have played these roles before on stages in Missoula and Bozeman, but each keeps coming back to what they call a particularly magnetic message. For Secher, Schwartz’s character offers a certain kinship and familiar attitude.
Schwartz’s steadfast message was to be positive in the face of death and to continue living as lovingly as possible.
“The reality of it all is I am more or less the age Morrie was when he got Lou Gehrig’s disease,” Secher, 75, said. “One at my age has choices about how they’re going to live the rest of their life.”
As a person who is not comfortable unless busy, Secher said the book’s message resonates deeply with him. Life is not stagnant, even if one knows it may be over soon, Secher said.
For Ford, the play offers a more emotional look at the already famous book.
“A book tells a story in your own mind. The play is a story that you observe and can be a lot more powerful in a lot of ways,” Ford said. “You see the emotion on somebody’s face, you hear the story spoken.”
Playing Albom was one of Ford’s first dramatic roles. He is a regular in comedic and musical numbers in the valley, including the Alpine Theatre Project’s “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” and the Whitefish Theater Company’s “Arsenic and Lace,” “Dirty Blonde” and “The Underpants.”
Schwartz forces Albom to reevaluate his life, which would be considered successful by many conventional standards. As a prominent sportswriter from Detroit, Albom learns that caring for people is the most important way to appraise one’s success in life, Ford said.
“The story is so good and the wisdom that Morrie has for people as they face the end of their life for me, personally, is very important to tell people about,” Ford said.
One of those lessons is not to hide death in the shadows, Ford said. American culture largely refuses to discuss death and often fights against the concept, he added.
“That’s why his lessons are important,” Ford said. “It is a part of life. It’s a completion of the circle. Be ready for it.”
These interactions are often emotional and draining, but both actors said they are so into their respective characters that the tears come freely.
The first showing on April 11 takes place at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish. The April 18 showing will be at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets cost $20 and will benefit the Bet Harim Jewish Congregation of the Flathead Valley, the Kalispell Regional Medical Center hospice program and Glacier Universalist Unitarian Fellowship in Kalispell.
Both actors advised audience members to be ready to listen and learn; Secher called it a “two-handkerchief” play. Secher and his wife, Ina Albert, attended Brandeis University after Schwartz had already passed away, but said they felt the difference he made on campus.
“We never knew him, but we know him well,” Secher said.
Tickets for Tuesdays with Morrie can be purchased at any of the hosting or sponsoring organizations or by calling Bet Harim at 406-756-5159.