{"id":15302,"date":"2018-01-24T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15302"},"modified":"2018-01-23T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T21:54:11","slug":"forget-about-tomorrow-playwright-says-writing-was-therapeutic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/01\/24\/forget-about-tomorrow-playwright-says-writing-was-therapeutic\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget About Tomorrow<\/em> playwright says writing was therapeutic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The play Forget About Tomorrow<\/i> examines the life of a woman whose husband developed early onset Alzheimer\u2019s. Playwright Jill Daum originally began writing the piece in a workshop several years ago, before it had been made public that her husband, Spirit of the West vocalist John Mann, had developed the disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really therapeutic, and I loved writing about it. The fact that nobody knew that that was my life was somehow cathartic,\u201d says Daum. \u201cI got to talk about things that were actually happening to me, under this pretence that I was making up this story. It\u2019s not John\u2019s and my life, it\u2019s a fictional story, but I stole things that were happening to him, and happening to me. The story is about the caregiver, not about the person who has Alzheimer\u2019s. It\u2019s about the person who loves somebody who gets Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daum expresses the difficulty that the family and friends of a person with Alzheimer\u2019s can have, starting even before the disease has been identified.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Forget About Tomorrow<\/em> playwright Jill Daum (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually a really slow unravelling that happens,\u201d says Daum. \u201cNo one can figure out what\u2019s going on for quite a while. All of a sudden someone isn\u2019t acting how they used to\u2014they\u2019re disappointing people a lot, just in little things. They forget to take out the recycling or they just don\u2019t do their share anymore. They sort of surreptitiously, in a way, rely on other people to do things for them; it\u2019s like a coping mechanism that they learn almost without realizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mann began encountering issues, doctors were not drawn towards an Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis, as he was still on stage performing at his usual capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a couple years for us to figure out what was happening, and then it\u2019s not like you become incapacitated all at once; now you know that you have this horrible future in front of you, but you\u2019re still functioning and leading your life,\u201d says Daum. \u201cI\u2019d like people to have an understanding about early onset Alzheimer\u2019s; it\u2019s different. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s not all horrible, but there are things about getting Alzheimer\u2019s when you\u2019re 49 or 50 years old that are really different from getting it when you\u2019re 79 or 80. One of the main things is a lot of people are still working; [that age is] supposed to be the pinnacle of your career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daum says that Forget About Tomorrow<\/i> is all about having to go from finding out to finding acceptance. She says watching the play is like watching a dream come true; she no longer sees herself in her character, but, rather, someone who she can identify with. The play also includes two songs by Mann, who has been involved in the process; true to their life together, the show also features some light-hearted, comedic moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my life with John\u2014we laugh a lot and we try and make each other laugh a lot, so I just imagined that would be a part of this family\u2019s life; that seems true to me,\u201d says Daum. \u201cI\u2019m in awe of what they\u2019re doing when I watch it. You envision it and then you see it before you. The actors that we have here are incredible. I get completely sucked up in it every time. I feel like I could watch it every day. I end up just watching something with someone who\u2019s got so much in common with me. I really hope other people feel that too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forget About Tomorrow
\n<\/i>Various times, until Sunday, February 18
\n$20 to $53, Belfry Theatre
\nbelfry.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The play Forget About Tomorrow examines the life of a woman whose husband developed early onset Alzheimer\u2019s. Playwright Jill Daum originally began writing the piece in a workshop several years ago, before it had been made public that her husband, Spirit of the West vocalist John Mann, had developed the disease. \u201cIt was really therapeutic, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-january-24-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15305,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15302\/revisions\/15305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}