In Arizona Theatre Company's "Tuesdays With Morrie," Mark Chamberlin plays Mitch Albom, a young writer who reconnects with his college professor, Morrie Schwartz, after finding out that Schwartz is dying.
A role the 50-year-old actor wishes he had less real-time experience with.
Like Schwartz, Chamberlin's best friend and fellow actor Robert (Bob) Nadir was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a neuromuscular disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease — in 1998.
Chamberlin spent the next five years watching his longtime pal fade away until finally succumbing to the illness in April 2002.
"He was diagnosed with bulbar palsy ALS, which means it first manifested in the tongue, mouth and throat," said Chamberlin in a phone interview last week. "As soon as the disease started in him, he lost his ability to perform. It was incredibly hard for him."
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"One of the descriptions of ALS is that you become a prisoner in your own body. Everything from a muscular standpoint stops working, but your emotions, intellect and senses all remain the same. On many levels it is a death sentence. No one survives."
Just as Albom did in the nonfiction New York Times bestseller-turned-play, Chamberlin had a tough time dealing with his best friend's battle with ALS.
When Nadir was diagnosed, Chamberlin had to come to the realization that they would no longer act together. That Nadir would no longer attend family dinners or that the two would never fix up another house — a side business they had put together over the years.
As Nadir learned more about what was happening to him — the disease is diagnosed in more than 5,000 people a year, according to the ALS Association — so did Chamberlin.
"I had my first learning experience about what this does in exactly the same way Mitch does in the play," Chamberlin said. "I didn't know anything about it, and all of a sudden someone I was very close to had been given the diagnosis and what that means. We both knew what the ultimate lesson was. It was going to be death. But we weren't sure how that was going to happen and in what way he was going to progress through his illness.
"When he died, there was sadness but also a little bit of relief. All of us who loved Bob knew that he was no longer suffering."
Chamberlin has made it a point in life to never forget his friend.
When he isn't acting, he serves as president of the Evergreen Chapter of the ALS Association in Washington state — an organization whose mission is to serve people living with ALS and raise money to find a cure.
"I do this to honor the memory of my friend," Chamberlin said. "When I got involved with the ALS Association, I discovered two big things. That there is a tremendous community of people that are around the country who are patients, caregivers and volunteers like myself who are working with this every day. And that for me personally, adding a consistent, pretty large commitment to a charitable act does nothing but improve my life as well."
The actor feels he is doing a service to Nadir with "Tuesdays With Morrie," a production he is more than happy to be a part of.
"I think the story of the relationship between these two men and their journey go well together in a very well told and moving story," he said. "One of the things that is different about this for me is that it is a two-character play, and I don't think I've ever done one before. The character of Mitch dramatically functions both as the narrator of the evening as well as a character involved with the story. It is a challenge to step into the character to participate in all the scenes and then step out of character to also be the storyteller for the evening."
Chamberlin says his experience with the play has only made him stronger.
"The nexus of life and art have become sort of shockingly real to me," he said. "You spend a lifetime in the theater pretending you are other people, and all of a sudden when you are so close to a story as I am to this one, it becomes a little challenging to separate Mitch's feelings from my own. But that is an interesting artistic experience and one that I wouldn't trade for anything."
QUICK TAKE
Tuesdays With Morrie
Performed by: Arizona Theatre Company
Directed by: Samantha K. Wyer
Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.
When: Previews at 8 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-next Thursday; opening night 7:30 p.m. April 21; continues through May 6.
Tickets: $26-$44 through the ATC box office, 622-2823.
Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes, with no intermission
