A dying septuagenarian college professor with life lessons to impart. A career-obsessed 30something sports reporter in dire need of them. Welcome to Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom’s stage adaptation of Albom’s international best-seller Tuesdays With Morrie, a chuckles-inducing, crowd-pleasing tear-jerker from Sierra Madre Playhouse.

Promises to stay in touch with his favorite sociology prof may have been made in earnest when Mitch (Jackson Kendall) graduated from Brandeis, but it’s not till sixteen years later that a Nightline interview with ALS-diagnosed Morrie Schwartz (Larry Eisenberg) sends the Detroit Free Press columnist on a flight to Boston to make good on that selfishly forgotten vow.

Not that Mitch has any intention of paying “Coach” a second visit once catch-up pleasantries have been exchanged.

Still, the bubbly bubbe proves a hard man to say no to, and so a week later Mitch finds himself flying back to Massachusetts for what will become a fourteen-Tuesday habit until the inevitable occurs.

Critics may rightly contend that there’s nothing particularly new or different about the life lessons Morrie imparts to his protégé: LIve every day as if it were your last. Love as deeply as humanly possible. Face adversity with valor.

It’s also entirely predictable that Mitch will find himself becoming less and less self-centered as Morrie’s condition gradually deteriorates.

Finally, anyone who’s ever seen an “inspiring two-hander” will be able to predict from the get-go what Tuesdays With Morrie’s final scenes have in store and come supplied with Kleenex.

Still, even minus surprise twists or novel pearls of wisdom, the Hatcher-Albom stage adaptation delivers the emotional goods, particularly as directed with visual flair and attention to nuance by L. Flint Esquerra and acted to perfection by stage vet Eisenberg and up-and-comer Kendall.

Exuding avuncular warmth and sporting a perpetual twinkle in his eye, Eisenberg’s silver-haired Morrie is ingratiating as all get-out even as the debilitating motor neuron disease robs him of the ability to walk and the use of his hands, though fortunately not of the ability to speak.

As for Kendall, though the charismatic Sierra Madre Playhouse favorite is closer in age to recent-college-graduate Mitch than to our nearing-40 narrator, he’s got the stage presence and maturity to ace Albom’s character arc and the emotional depth to pull off his final Tuesday With Morrie to heartrending effect.

Amanda Knehans’ attractive, abstract wood-paneled set (designed to not only serve the play’s multiple locales but do double duty in the soon-to-open Stuart Little) seems incomplete without scene-and-season-establishing projections to fill an empty gray backdrop.

On the other hand, Derek Jones’s warm, vibrant lighting, Michael Mullen’s age-and-character-appropriate costumes, Jen Gies’ just-right properties (including assorted illness-related paraphernalia), and Christopher Moscatiello’s expert sound design (we almost believe it’s Kendall tickling the ivories) all merit cheers.

Tuesdays With Morrie is produced by Christian Lebano. Elizabeth Eichler is stage manager and Matthew Raymond is assistant stage manager. Owen Lewis is production manager and Todd McCraw is technical director.

You may not exit Tuesdays With Morrie any wiser than when you entered, but at the very least you will have witnessed two superb performances and shed more than a few well-earned tears. Oh, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself phoning a loved one on the drive home.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
February 24, 2019
Photos: Gina Long

Tags: Jeffrey Hatcher, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mitch Albom, Sierra Madre Playhouse