all the world's a stage

At first blush, you wouldn’t think that people who have Parkinson’s disease and actors in an improv comedy show have a lot in common.
Actually, they do. And the truth of that statement was driven home to me this week, when members of a support group organized by the Parkinson’s Albert a Society that I belong to attended a zany, funny improv performance at Calgary’s Loose Moose Theatre Company.
Improv comedy, as many of you no doubt know, is unscripted and spontaneous. In this case, the actors started out with lines of unrelated dialogue that audience members had scribbled on small sheets of paper before the performance. These lines were then scattered across the stage floor. The first one an actor picked up at random became the title of the play: ‘You Wouldn’t Understand It, You Weren’t in the War.’
Every so often, each actor had to in turn pick up one of the random lines and immediately use it in their performance, making for some hilarious, jarring plot turns in what turned out to be a tale about rescuing a financially troubled farm tractor company, an executive who lost his legs in the war, his loyal female administrative assistant and her ex-lover…well you had to be there to understand it all.
Afterwards, I thought about the similarities on the stage and in my life.
• Improv actors must do their best to shine with the lines they get. Likewise, people with Parkinson’s performing on the stage of life must find a way to cope with being dealt the unexpected ‘line’ of a PD diagnosis
• Both actors and PD patients must ‘go with the flow.’ Like an improv plot, sudden changes in your life come with Parkinson’s. Get used to it
• Nobody walks alone. Good improv actors need to help each other to make the play work; PD patients need their caregivers and support networks to make their lives work. Often we must learn to ask for help
• It really helps to have a sense of humour and the ability to live in the moment
• Crises can present opportunities. Improv actors can flounder and then just a moment later, confidentially launch the story in a new direction. Ditto for our lives with this disease
• There are no do-overs on the stage or in life. You can complain endlessly or resolve to make the best of it
• You may be surprised with what the actors fashion from the little they have to work with in the end. As someone with PD, I’m often amazed at what positive changes and experiences a rocky and steeper path has brought into my life
As William Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Me, I’m ready for some more improv. You know, laughter is therapeutic.