When I heard that Julie Jensen's play Last Lists of My Mad Mother was about a woman with Alzheimer's and her two daughters, I was intrigued. My own mother, once intelligent and vivacious, in fact a practicing therapist, has Alzheimer's (and two daughters). How does an actress play someone with senile dementia? (Dementia is a symptom of Alzheimer's, as it is of other illnesses; for acting purposes, there's no need to differentiate. In fact, Alzheimer's is a name given to a condition that cannot be accurately diagnosed until autopsy.)
Unable to see Last Lists myself (I live in San Francisco; it runs through May 14 at the Hudson Guild in Hollywood), I relied on reviews to tell me that playwright Jensen, director Hope Alexander, and actor Karlene Bradley nailed it. One critic said Bradley's performance is "eerily right"; another referred to her "hundred-yard stare and residual twinkle." Yes, my mom has those: a far-off, fixed gaze; a vacant chuckle; but also an occasional teasing remark and conspiratorial wink-a shadowy reminder of her former self.
I called Jensen first. She based the character of Ma on her own mother. I asked her what she considered important for an actor to know about playing an Alzheimer's victim. "You learn in acting that you can't repeat anything the same way," she said. But people with Alzheimer's can. And do. They can't remember anything they've said, so each time it's fresh. (My own mother's short-term memory is no longer than about a minute.)
Plus, a typical trait of Alzheimer's is a fixation on some simple thing. ("Your lipstick matches your shirt!" my mother informs me delightedly, over and over again, on every single visit. Maureen Reagan recently wrote that when she visits her father, he is entranced by her brightly painted fingernails.) Put obsession and memory loss together and you get repetition, always expressed in the exact same way. Alzheimer's people live entirely in the present but for vague, confused memories of the distant past (which they tend to think is the present).
I asked Jensen about physicality. Noting that it varies from patient to patient, she said, "The mind goes, so the body is actually sometimes healthier because they have no tension, they're not troubled." Exactly: My mother is as physically relaxed as a rag doll and is healthy as a horse, although very frail and weak-which is no doubt another common trait, because Alzheimer's induces passivity, and its victims often don't exercise. From what I've read and observed, a shuffling walk and an open, child-like, and sometimes dreamy facial expression appear to be other common traits.
Calm Eye of the Storm
Bradley has had lots of experience with Alzheimer's patients, having worked as a performer in drama therapy programs for the elderly.
"Basically," said Bradley, "you have to approach it from the outside in. There's no way to approach it from the inside out, because they can't tell us how they feel." The most my mother, upon questioning, has come up with is that she feels that all life is a dream.
"My personal observations lead me to believe that even though the mind is scrambled, the emotional connections can still be made," Bradley continued. I think she's absolutely right. My mother, who appears to be in the middle stage of Alzheimer's (there are said to be three progressive stages), isn't at all sure who I am from moment to moment-but she knows she loves me.
Because in Last Lists Ma's lines tend to be non-sequiturs-Alzheimer's people live in a fragmented world of their own-Bradley quickly found that she had to create images in her own mind to get through the transitions, and that she always had to know what she meant, even if the meaning is not apparent to anyone else. She took her cues from a single word, or an image in her mind, trying to keep it as spontaneous as possible. For example, in one interchange, Ma's daughter says to her, "And you were brave, Mama..." and Ma's response is, "Without the eye of the storm, that's what I think is important."
How did Bradley make that illogical leap? "I think about a tornado. I get that picture in my mind. I don't worry about the reasons for the images, I just allow them to come. They're not always the same from night to night. It's just a matter of listening. I think you have to listen as much as in any role." When she's listening, Bradley sometimes uses a specific subtext: "I wonder what she's talking about," she thinks to herself.
These approaches would of course work equally well if you're in, say, an absurdist comedy, or playing an insane or developmentally challenged person.
"You want to make the character as full as you can," Bradley cautioned. "Even though she's diminished, she doesn't have to be one-dimensional."
Simple Obsession
Actor Corey Fischer's father died of Alzheimer's recently. By then Fischer, a member of the San Francisco ensemble A Traveling Jewish Theatre, had already performed his original solo piece Forgiving Waters, in which he played several characters, including his father. "You can't play forgetting," he pointed out. "What you can play is the effort to remember. You can't play falling apart-you play the struggle to hold it together." Right. Just as you wouldn't play drunk, you'd play struggling to appear sober. And you wouldn't try to cry; you'd try to not cry.
Fischer, who works with movement-based techniques, used a lot of body language to create his dad-tracing something invisible in the air, rubbing fingers together. Bradley too finds herself, somewhat unconsciously, feeling textures, touching things, as maybe you would if playing a blind person. Fischer also agreed that an Alzheimer's person is likely to obsess on a simple thing. He picked up on elements of Alzheimer's in creating his role in a recent ATJT production of Kabbalah Tango. In it, his character keeps wondering about a missing chair. (In my mother's case, it's usually, "Where is my comb?")
Fischer's advice was simple: "Be specific. Through observation and imagination, create a character who happens to have Alzheimer's. Know who the person was before, as you would with any character. Find the human beneath the words." Exactly. As Bradley said, "The emotions are more important than the words."
Finally, Jensen recommends research. Bay Area filmmaker Deborah Kaufman's documentary Confessions of a Dutiful Daughter, about her own mother's battle with Alzheimer's, is a wonderful resource. And the Alzheimer's Association of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area (www.alzsf.org or call (650) 962-8111) provides plenty of useful information about physical and mental traits common to Alzheimer's.
Also, I'd add, don't be afraid to find humor in your portrayal. Bradley said that Jensen gave the cast permission to find the humor in her text, and that was important. Fischer's father, when he was still aware enough to know he was losing it, would make light of his condition. Sad as it is, Alzheimer's also can be a funny disease, and my mother, who always had a great sense of humor, is still more than happy to join in the merriment and laugh at her own gaffes.
Final words of advice: The same as with any other role (e.g., Laura in The Glass Menagerie, Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, Molly in Molly Sweeney), you don't want to play the disability-you want to play the whole person as she or he has adapted to the disability. In the case of senility, you justify your character's behavior in imaginative ways, make unusual but specific choices to carry you through transitions, and always have something real going on in your mind. BSW