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David Esbjornson is reassuring. "This is not a stage version of the book," he says. "This is more like a play about how the book came into being."
Not that there's anything wrong with the book "Tuesdays With Morrie." Since it was published in 1997, it has sold something like 11 million copies. It has been translated into 30 languages.
It has plenty of name recognition, which is a consideration if you'd like to sell some tickets to a play -- an issue toward which Esbjornson is not indifferent. He is artistic director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. His production of "Tuesdays With Morrie" opens there on Wednesday.
The book is full of wise words. Example: "I am detaching myself. And this is important -- not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn to detach."
("Me" in this precept is retired sociology professor Morrie Schwartz. "You" is sports journalist Mitch Albom, a former student of Schwartz's at Brandeis University.)
The 2006 Anchor paperback edition of "Tuesdays With Morrie" begins with four pages of praise, including: "I love this book" -- Amy Tang. "A sweet book" -- Robert Bly. "Great clarity and wisdom" -- M. Scott Peck.
But even the most hyperbolic endorsements don't say "gripping drama."
"That was our challenge when we started in on the play," says Esbjornson. He and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and book author Albom dramatized "Tuesdays" four years ago at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Conn.
"For one thing, we had to find conflict," Esbjornson elaborates. "You don't get that in the book."
"The book" details how Albom sees Schwartz on a "Nightline" TV interview. Schwartz speaks of the fatal progress of his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease -- an incurable form of nerve and muscle deterioration). Albom has been out of Brandeis for 16 years. He is very busy building success upon success as a hotshot Detroit sportswriter.
But Schwartz was Albom's favorite teacher. Albom felt that Schwartz discovered and encouraged talents in him that he might have been unaware of otherwise. So Albom decides to fly off to Boston to visit Schwartz. Visiting then turned into a regular ritual. Albom brought a recorder. He culled Schwartz's thoughts about spiritual growth and physical decay.
"Albom is a very private person," Esbjornson says. "But as Jeffrey and I talked to him, we were able to get at personality clashes that create drama. In the book, it's mostly Mitch asking questions and Morrie responding. So we had to flesh out the characters.
"It turned out that when Mitch was young he lost someone to cancer and had an intense fear of death. He felt damaged by loss and fear. That's not in the book. But it gives a certain edge to the play. And you see the characters changing, coming closer together, understanding one another and themselves.
"The book is a distillation of all that, if you will. The play shows how the material developed in the first place. And it's not at all like the movie. Mitch was not happy with the way the (1999 Jack Lemmon) movie rewrote his life. You know how that is. An author has very little control over what Hollywood eventually makes of his book. The personal details in the movie are mostly fabrications. Yes, we needed dramatic conflict. But we also wanted truth."
Since it premiered off-Broadway in 2002, "Tuesdays With Morrie" has been a great favorite with producers and audiences all over America. There's a touring company out and about. And several regional companies, like the Rep, have mounted their own productions.
As a phenomenon, "Tuesdays With Morrie" has a philanthropic element. Albom wrote the book partly as a way of paying Schwartz's huge medical bills. "That was a great relief to Morrie," Esbjornson notes, "because without that help, the family would have been bankrupted."
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