A balm for troubled times

WHEN Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT) announced it was opening its theatre again for performances (albeit with a reduced capacity), tickets to its first show Tuesdays With Morrie sold faster than one can say: "I miss watching plays." Maybe it's because no one had seen a live play for months. Or maybe it's because this one's adapted from the biggest non-fiction bestseller of 2000. Who can say why the tickets sold so well - and really, who cares.

Tuesdays With Morrie is about a dying professor who helps an overburdened man to live again - but it's now provided a lifeline for SRT too. The theatre company has lost about S$2 million on the back of the cancelled blockbuster import War Horse and other productions. So the fact that Tuesdays With Morrie is so popular, prompting SRT to add more shows which are also selling quickly, feels like a timely miracle.

The production stars Benjamin Chow as Mitch Albom, a real-life hotshot sports reporter who reconnects with his old professor Morrie Schwartz (Remesh Panicker) now stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease. At the start of the story, Mitch leads a hectic life of a successful journalist. He flies all over the US, reports on the biggest games, rubs shoulders with the fanciest athletes, and even has his own daily radio show.