Preview
MESA
Ghost River Theatre
Starring Christopher Hunt and Doug Curtis
Written by Doug Curtis
Directed by Andy Curtis
Runs until December 19
Vertigo Studio Theatre (Tower Centre)
As an autobiographical monologist in the Spalding Gray tradition, Calgary’s Doug Curtis has spent much of his career sharing his life with audiences. But he felt understandably reluctant to talk about his most recent life-changing experience.
Last winter, the 40-year-old Curtis was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease.
The diagnosis of the neurological disorder came just shortly after Curtis’s company, Ghost River Theatre, had committed to remounting its hit play, Mesa, for an encore run in Calgary this Christmas season. Another slice from Curtis’s own life, Mesa features him narrating the tale of his comical road trip to Arizona with his wife’s cranky 93-year-old grandfather, played by Christopher Hunt.
Faced with a visible illness that affects two of a performer’s most important tools – physical co-ordination and mental acuity – Curtis considered hiring another actor to fill his role.
"A lot of people were asking me if I was going to do it," he says. "Initially, I told them I was playing around with the idea of getting somebody else, and everybody unanimously said, ‘No you have to do it. You’re the one who should.’"
And so Curtis has courageously gone ahead and recast himself in the show, which opens on Friday, December 10 at the Vertigo Studio with a gala performance to benefit the Parkinson’s Society of Southern Alberta.
His decision was prompted not just by the encouragement of friends and colleagues, but also by an improvement in his health since the diagnosis. "I got some much stronger medication and it’s made a real difference in terms of alertness and balance. The only thing that’s a bit of a wild card is my tremor," he says, holding out his trembling right hand to illustrate. "It’s related to mental activity, so as I’m thinking more and more, it starts going off on its own."
To help control it, Curtis grips a squeeze bag in his palm, but he knows he won’t be able to hide his tremor onstage. "It’s going to go off in the show, so we’re going to have to work it in, just make fun of it," he says.
And that’s where the autobiography takes a new turn. When we spoke, Curtis was just beginning rehearsals for this production, but he says Mesa’s script is being retailored to incorporate his illness. "We’re going to very subtly address the Parkinson’s issue. There will be a moment when my character will reveal the tremor."
In fact, while Curtis doesn’t want to disclose too many details, he says the Parkinson’s has allowed him to update and perhaps give more dramatic weight to the story.
In the original play, first presented at the High Performance Rodeo in 2000, Curtis’s alter ego, Paul, is a 34-year-old writer reluctantly facing adult responsibilities, for whom the trip to Mesa with Grandpa Bud offers the potential to escape. "It wasn’t dramatically risky," admits Curtis, "he just doesn’t want to grow up." In the new version, there’s a more compelling reason for him not to return home. As Curtis knows firsthand, many Parkinson’s sufferers battle depression, and the urge to run away and not burden your loved ones with your illness can be strong. This time, he says, when Paul considers dropping out of life, "the stakes are so much higher."
By putting his impairment onstage, Curtis is following in the footsteps of other gutsy performers with disabilities, including those showcased at this week’s Balancing Acts festival (see the Mat Fraser story in this issue) and, of course, Alberta actor-playwright Lyle Victor Albert, whose witty, unsentimental solo shows revolve around living with cerebral palsy. "Vic Albert is my hero," says Curtis.
Although Parkinson’s is commonly an older person’s disease, an increasing number of people in their 30s and 40s are being diagnosed with the illness today. Actor Michael J. Fox became the poster boy for early-onset Parkinson’s when he revealed that he had the disorder in 1998. Simply put, Parkinson’s is a communications breakdown in the part of the brain that governs movement and balance. The nerve cells that produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter that carries messages, begin to die off and the brain starts to lose control of the muscles. The cause of Parkinson’s has yet to be determined, although there is increased speculation that environmental factors, including excessive exposure to herbicides and pesticides, may be involved in some cases.
There is no cure for Parkinson’s. The most common treatment is through drugs. Curtis is taking Sinemet (generic name: levodopa-carbidopa), which helps the brain generate new dopamine. He’s also on a serious yoga regimen. "I’m yoga crazy," he says. "It has a beneficial effect on the body for people with Parkinson’s."
The disease is "very idiosyncratic," says Curtis. "With some people, it can gallop through their system in five years. Other people can go 20, 30 years and be on the medication that long."
It has forced the hard-working playwright, actor and director – who also teaches storytelling classes through his Ghost River company – to slow down and do a little more delegating. But he’s determined to keep working. "I’m not ready to go on the shelf yet," he says. In May, Ghost River will tour its incendiary Wiebo Ludwig musical An Eye For an Eye, directed by Curtis, to the National Arts Centre in Ottawa as part of the Alberta Scene showcase celebrating the province’s centennial. Meanwhile, he has received a grant to write a new play about living with Parkinson’s, called The Uninvited Guest, or: The Brain’s Desire.
"It’s important that people know that this happens," he says. "Reality happens. Tragedy happens. But it shouldn’t stop us from doing what we want to do." |
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