SOMETIMES LIFE GRABS you by the nerve centre and it runs away with you for your whole career. It can make you lose focus on the things that keep us human. Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie has over the last two decades become a chestnut of schmaltzy platitudes, but in the directorial hands of Alan Swerdlow, and performed by Michael Richard and Jeremy Richard, it remains fresh and deep. It’s at Theatre on the Square in Sandton until 22 November 2026.

Mitch (Jeremy Richard) first encounters Morrie Schwartz (Michael Richard) at Brandeis University in the 1970s. He’s a student, with a penchant and a talent for jazz. Morrie’s the sociology prof. A bond is formed that matters. And then what with one thing and another, life happens and Mitch graduates and develops a career for himself as a sports journalist.

It takes a Ted Koppel show one night, some 16 years later, to remind Mitch of his ‘coach’, Morrie, and the friendship is reignited. Only this time, Morrie is in a different stage of his life. He has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and he hasn’t long to live. The relationship becomes a different kind of a beast, with a different kind of give and take that’s not so much about the bits and shards of earning credits or developing a professional reputation as it is about making peace with being in the world.

With a smattering of Martin Buber, a dash of Yiddish quotes and a whole lot of “Morrie-isms” that raise the idea of Morrie to an iconic thinker like Confucious or Buddha, it’s a beautiful show, based on a real Morrie written by the real Mitch. But this play boasts something more. The story first saw light of day in 1997. It was published as a humble tribute to a great teacher and touched so many readers that what was intended as an edition of 20 000 mushroomed into a millions-strong best seller, with editions in different translations all over the world.

As a play, it first saw light of day in 2002. And it was first performed at Theatre on the Square in 2010. Also, directed at the time by Swerdlow. Sixteen years later, and with plays such as Visiting Mr Green, a similar narrative, also under his belt, Swerdlow brings back this chestnut with a sense of abstraction and an excellence that cuts through fatty clichés with a strong hand. It will make you weep and laugh as though you don’t know how it must end, and will give you hefty takeaways that feel new.

The play flows well and with clarity, and there is a moment when Janine, Mitch’s wife, appears in song (sung by Sarah Richard) that is so crisp and simple that your heart will dissolve. There is, however, another moment when the laughter jars. It leaves you uncomfortable in the presence of the young man guffawing with his older mentor, about the horror of being dependent on another for basic bodily cleanliness, because the body can’t look after itself any longer. Is that jarring sense which makes you clench your empathetic smile away, what it is all about, though? Polite society hasn’t taught us how to laugh at our own runaway bodies, when they get diseased and broken, and when they die. Maybe we need that release.

The abstraction of this play is corroborated in the production’s design, which features a curious image of a seemingly Byzantine mosaic on the floor. You don’t get a literal explanation of it but walk away with the warmth of its colour that fills the stage and an evoked image of one of those old Greek teachers, like Plato or Aristotle, with a disciple. Indeed, the set feels like a back room. Scaffolding and sheets of plastic define the space, punctuated as it must be by a wheelchair, a walker, a laz-e-boy chair and ultimately a bed. This set flows marvellously into the fabric of the work, which in 2026 is less about Mitch or Morrie and more about you, your elders and the squeamishness of illness and the cloying smell of death.

This play has earned its reputation as the king of feel-good theatre experiences, but this production makes it unforgettable by the cheerful vulnerability of the old man, alongside the conservative young writer all coloured with bravado; but moreso by the fact that the performers themselves are father and son. The kind of nerve is touched that makes you want to come home and call that elderly parent you haven’t called for a while, look up that teacher who changed your opinions and made you remember how you can shine.

Tuesdays with Morrie is written for stage by Mitch Albom and Jeffery Hatcher, based on the eponymous 1997 book by Mitch Albom. Directed by Alan Swerdlow, it is performed by Jeremy Richard, Michael Richard and Sarah Richard and features design by Wilhelm Disbergen (production) and Margo Fleisch (costumes). It is produced by Daphne Kuhn, stage managed by Regina Dube, with technical management by Loftus Mohale assisted by Reggie Mathebe, technical assistance by Nhlanhla Zungu, production assistance by Za Mwubela, online by Mika Stefano and theatre assistance by Magdalene Grace and Patricia Ramotatha. It is onstage at Theatre on the Square in Sandton until 22 November 2026.