Dementia Man’s Superpower
Theater goers at a recent Capital Fringe festival performance were handed both a program and a less typical offering: a guide to the “10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s.” Most of us didn’t bat an eye; after all we’d chosen to attend a play called Dementia Man, an Existential Journey.
As someone with a family history of Alzheimer’s and a belief in the transformative power of art, I seek out work that helps me better understand what it is to live with this cruel disease. But unlike the films Still Alice and The Father, this play is not a fictional account starring a well-known actor playing someone with Alzheimer’s.
“Everything you hear today is true,” says Sam Simon to his live audience, making clear this is no foray into fiction. Instead, it’s something utterly unique and fearless. In Dementia Man, an Existential Journey, Simon performs his one-man autobiographical play about what it means to have a meaningful life while also managing the symptoms of early-stage Alzheimer’s.
Since one of those symptoms is forgetfulness, theater goes may wonder how a solo show performed by someone with Alzheimer’s might go. Thankfully this show’s premier is at the Capital Fringe festival, which celebrates bold and experimental theater. The festival wants to challenge perceptions, inviting both performers and audiences to be brave and unafraid.
This play does exactly that. Directed by Thadd McQuade with dramaturgy by Gabrielle Maisels, Dementia Man offers theater goers a firsthand experience of what happens when one man’s brilliant brain sometimes goes off to a place of nothingness.
The opening moments preview one of the play’s themes: people with cognitive disorders are deserving of support and accommodations that enhance their quality of life and ability to engage in meaningful interactions and activities. Marsha Abromovich kicks off the show by introducing herself as the play’s stage manager and cognitive navigator. She lets the audience know that Simon will use a binder of his script and that she’s there to help if needed.
Simon follows her, striding out in the casual work attire of a former public interest lawyer with an ease that speaks to his 20 years in improv and community theater. The performer reveals his superpower: he’s a born troublemaker. His particular brand of troublemaking is about using his voice to right societal wrongs, whether he’s sneaking out at age 14 to testify against a local curfew or serving as a disruptive member of Ralph Nader’s first advocacy group. One of Nadar’s Raiders, Simon broke up phone monopolies and pushed for consumer-friendly safety initiatives like seatbelts and curb-cuts.
This inclination for troublemaking comes in handy after Simon gets his diagnosis. But first he forgets where he is, takes a frightening wrong turn, and deals with a medical system that offers long wait times and few answers. There were nods of recognition in response to one particularly callous doctor’s dismissal of Simon, while his description of what happens when his mind goes to the “nowhere place” sheds light on an experience some of us may have witnessed but never fully understood.
While there are dark and deeply moving moments, Simon infuses light and hope into his story, particularly the ending. He has some powerful tools at his disposal—his loving and deeply supportive wife Susan and their family, a passion for doing the right thing, and his essential identity as a troublemaker. The public interest lawyer and former consumer advocate has a history of stepping up to fight for those with a limited voice and power. Now he’s ready to advocate for the rights and dignity of those impacted by Alzheimer’s and other neurocognitive disorders.
Simon’s willingness to speak frankly and publicly about his disease counters the stigma of shame that can accompany a diagnosis. If this man can be vulnerable and talk about it so openly, perhaps the rest of us can too.
“I can vanish or I can cause trouble,” says Simon, embracing this latest stage of troublemaking, one where he advocates for a world that radically embraces people like him. As a first step, he asks that we stop using the term “dementia,” a word that’s too close to “demented” and its associated definitions of being mad or insane. The preferred term is the less easy to say but more accurate “neurocognitive disorder.”
As someone who has used the word without thinking, it was an aha moment for me. For I understood there was nothing demented about Simon, nor my mother, who has more advanced Alzheimer’s but still can crack a well-timed joke, feed me lines of poetry and sing along to “Oliver.”
The play’s aspirational future includes a time when artificial intelligence helps tell the stories of those impacted by disorders like Alzheimer’s. But no technology can replace what the very human Simon is doing on a basement stage in the D.C. Jewish Community Center: moving hearts and minds and inspiring a new group of troublemakers to join his cause.
Bravo!
Dementia Man, An Existential Journey plays July 22 at 1:00 pm and July 23 at 4:45 pm at DCJCC – Cafritz Hall as part of the amazing 2023 Capital Fringe Festival. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online. The play does include difficult material, including discussions of suicide.
Like what you read? Fans of Simon’s work can become producers or make a donation to expand the play’s reach here.