A confession: sometimes I am only half-listening to my mother. So when she asked if I'd like to go see a local play featuring John Mahoney (of Frasier fame), I said, “Sure!” went back to Twitter, and didn't listen to anything else she said.
So imagine my surprise recently when I opened the program for the production of The Outgoing Tide and discovered Mahoney portrays a man with Alzheimer's, fighting with his family about end-of-life decisions and whether or not to enter an assisted living facility.
As my mother herself is fond of saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
The play, written by Bruce Graham, is superbly acted and I'd highly recommend it for anyone who can get to Northlight Theater in Chicago's northern suburb of Skokie, not just those in the LTC field.
What struck me is how those of us on the business side can easily forget how these situations play out in families everywhere, everyday. Even for those on the front lines, the resident is in the lead role. The advantage of a play like The Outgoing Tide is that it can shed insight on the supporting characters: namely, the spouse and children watching their loved one diminish. There are plenty of funny moments in the play, but there are also ones that make you cringe, like when Mahoney's character insists the television is broken, only to be informed that he's been trying to turn on the microwave. The beauty of art is that it can take a scene that's old-hat and turn us, as the audience, to a different angle.
Without giving anything away, at the end of the play my mother sighed and said, “I wish there would have been a happy ending.” Don't we all. (I believe my exact words were, “You took us to a play about a guy with Alzheimer's. What kind of happy ending were you envisioning?”)
Of course, the happiest ending is the day that there is a cure to Alzheimer's. But in the meantime, it's worth taking two hours to see one family find the best ending they can.