Tuesdays with Morrie: Interview with Director Erwin Maas
“Tuesdays with Morrie” is a play that is both humorous and poignant; it tells the story of a career-obsessed journalist named Mitch Albom who reconnects with his former college sociology professor, Morrie, sixteen years after graduation. When Mitch learns that Morrie is suffering from Lou Gehrig’s Disease, he decides to visit Morrie every Tuesday and indulge in conversations about life.
Produced by the Sea Dog Theater, the play is running at the historic St. George’s Chapel in Gramercy through April 20. Director Erwin Maas recently discussed this play and more via an exclusive interview.
Meagan Meehan (MM): How did you get interested in directing and why did you gravitate towards the theater?
Erwin Maas (EM): I’ve had a love for theater from an early age. The combination of telling stories and using imagination to tell them had a great appeal. When I was six or seven, I joined a theater course for kids in my hometown of Nuenen, the Netherlands. And later I also joined the community theater. During high school, I became interested in directing. Though I enjoyed being a part of the whole as an actor, I discovered I enjoyed envisioning the whole together with actors and designers even more. At the Theater Academy in the Netherlands, I chose the directing strand and that solidified my passion for directing further. I came to NYC for my MFA in Theater Directing at Columbia University as a Fulbright scholar. I also did a Masters in Documentary Filmmaking at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and it was there that I found out that theater really was my medium. I believe it to be the most collaborative of all the art forms and it is this collaboration that I truly enjoy. As a Dutch saying goes: ‘In heart & kidneys’ I’m a true theater animal.
MM: How did you get involved with the Sea Dog Theater Company?
EM: Chris (Sea Dog Theater’s Artistic Director) and I have been friends for a long time now. After seeing him perform in several productions, I wanted to work with him. After meeting each other in NYC and in his hometown of Salzburg, we talked about our passion for the theater and discovered we had similar interests in some of the stories we wanted to tell. When he started his company, I was one of the first directors he invited to direct some of the readings they present. Since then, I’ve directed more readings and co-created and directed two productions before this one: ‘Not From Here’ was a very successful site-specific interdisciplinary devised production in a suite in the ACE Hotel in Midtown; and ‘MEANING, The Viktor Frankl Project’, based on Frankl’s well known book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, has been a project that Chris and I have been working on for many years that was presented as a workshop production at the A.R.T. Theaters last year — with enthusiastic support from Viktor Frankl’s grandson who joined us from Vienna. We look forward to develop it further with other frequent Sea Dog Theater collaborators Brandt Adams & Guy de Lancey and present a full production in the future.
MM: What most appealed to you about the plot of “Tuesdays with Morrie”?
EM: I first read Mitch Albom’s book in the late nineties, several months after my father passed away at an early age. The relationship described in the book between a younger man and an older mentor, together with the questions and conversations about life and death, had a huge impact on me. So, when Chris, during the Pandemic, came to me with the play version it felt like a great opportunity to revisit this beautiful story at a moment in my life where I’m nearing the age my father had when he passed away. We talked about how the themes in the play are incredibly current in a time where folks feel increasingly lonely and where death seems to be evermore present around us (yet at the same time no one seems to want to talk or think about it). Even though it deals with a man dying, the play is profoundly life affirming and has a great deal of love and laughter which is really appealing to me.
MM: How long did this play take to complete?
EM: We did a reading of the play two years ago (at the tail end of the Pandemic). Chris and I discussed how Len would be an amazing Morrie. Len and I know each other already for a long time as we live in the same building and our partners are close friends. I had introduced Len to Chris, and the company, for another reading that he participated in a few years earlier. Doing this piece with two dear friends was incredibly lovely and valuable. The chemistry in the room was palpable and I knew it would translate to the reading which had a big impact on the audience that came. Many people were moved and told us we should make it into a production. So ever since, the three of us have come together every now and then to read through the play, have dinner and discussions. Meanwhile, I started to have conversations with designers as well and so over a two-year period the ideas for the production started to take form. I believe that time spent translates to, and is felt in, the final work that audiences now experience.
MM: Was it challenging to add music into this piece?
EM: We discussed the importance of music in this piece and the piano as a metaphor. As a director, I always tend to look at a script as a kind of musical score and I very much direct by ear — focusing on rhythm and melody. Most of the music bits in the play are actually written in the script. It indicates where certain music (‘akin to …’) needs to go. ‘La Boheme’ and ‘The Very Thought of You’ are two titles that are specifically mentioned to be used at the moments that you hear them in the piece. Chris did a fantastic job composing many of the piano bits (where the script indicates that Mitch plays the piano). We discussed how Mitch’s passion for the piano quite resembles Chris’ passion for music. I believe that a large part of what Morrie talks about is finding your purpose and passion in life and so the piano became a focal point. As a piano player himself, it all came quite natural to Chris. Also, our Sound Designer, Eamon Goodman, created a beautiful sound scape inspired by the piano that is used in some of our transitions.
MM: What is your favorite part of the play and why?
EM: My favorite part is the chemistry between the two actors. That, in combination with this pretty spectacular location and the beautiful design by Guy de Lancey and Eamon Goodman, really makes it all work for me. It is the care and chemistry between these two souls that really draws the audience in and that seems to move our audiences to both laughter and tears. It is one of the reasons why I wanted to strip away as much as possible regarding set/props — really let their chemistry shine. As a director I’m always very focused on my transitions (they have often been called quite cinematic — though for me they are more rhythmic/melodic, almost as a musical score), so the transitions (with the lighting and sound design and kudos to the stage manager) are another favorite of mine.
MM: What other people or themes might inspire future plays?
EM: As mentioned above, together with our collaborators, Chris and I continue to work on our production based on Viktor Frankl’s book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ (another one of those iconic and internationally known books). I’m currently also working with a disabled visual artist in Adelaide, Australia. Kirsty Martinsen and I have been working via Zoom for many years now on a performance installation piece about her amazing artistic work in which she started to use the wheels of her wheelchair to paint on large canvasses on the floor. We’re working towards a larger devised performance that will take place at the Adelaide Festival Center this September. She is definitely an artist that inspires me greatly. Interestingly, my work with her also is about some of life’s greatest questions and death and so there are definitely some parallels between these two projects and ‘Tuesdays with Morrie.’ I do think ‘death’ is a very powerful theme to explore, especially in our Western society where it seems like we’d rather keep it far away from our lives and almost look at it clinically from a distance. I’ve always had this idea in my mind of doing a large-scale performance project based on/inspired by many different requiems. So that’s also something I’m toying with.
MM: How do you hope your career evolves over the next five years?
EM: I hope to continue to work with many more inspiring people in inspiring places. And I hope to be able to move more audiences around the world. I believe theater is a powerful tool for healing, connection, and imagination — things our world needs badly. Through directing, teaching, curating, and advocacy, I have been fortunate to work internationally with many amazing people and so I definitely hope to continue to do so.
MM: What are your ultimate goals for the future and is there anything else that you would like to mention?
EM: I’ve always believed that the arts have the capacity to transform communities and societies and so that is something that’s always been part of my thinking in everything I do. When another colleague of mine and I heard about a U.N. report that stated that of all the global creative output (touring, selling of work, co-productions, residencies) less than 1% comes from the African continent, we collaborated with local arts professionals in South Africa to create the Pan-African Creative Exchange (PACE), a biennial showcase of artistic work from the continent. One of our goals is to make this organization sustainable and grow so as to challenge the status quo of the discourse around African/diaspora artistic work & promote a more equitable representation of creative expression on the global stage. Learn more HERE.
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Performances are Mondays — Saturdays at 7:30pm. Dark April 10. Run time is 95 minutes. Tickets are $75 (general), $55 (seniors 65+) and $35 (students with ID). For info and to purchase tickets go to https://www.seadogtheater.org.
