by AMY BARRATT

Its official name is the Leanor and Alvin Segal Theatre of the Saidye Bronfman Centre. You can see why everybody always abbreviates it to just "the Saidye." But it's time to quit that and I'll tell you why. The Bronfman name brings with it the perception of wealth, whereas in fact, "the Saidye" operates on a fraction of the budget of, say, the Centaur - and I'm not implying that Centaur is over-funded. Mr. and Mrs. Segal must have paid a pretty penny to get their name on the place, so I figure the time has come to give them their due. From now on, I'm calling it the Segal.

So last week I attended the opening of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie at the Segal. (Sounds good, no?) This is the stage adaptation of sports journalist Albom's memoir about the death of his college mentor, Morrie Schwartz, from ALS. Albom adapted the book himself along with Jeffrey Hatcher, who also wrote one of the best screenplays of all time, for Comfort and Joy.

I am one of the few remaining members of the human race who hasn't read the original book, despite Oprah's badgering (the late-night phone calls, the pleading, the crying... the woman should really get a life. Ha ha, just kidding, please don't sue me, Ms. Winfrey). So I can't compare the play to the book. I can tell you that although it's sweet and charming as hell, it's not much of a play. On the other hand, the production, directed by Marcia Kash, gets straight As.

The central problem is that the title character is, for all intents and purposes, a saint. Whether or not that was true about Morrie Schwartz, that is how Albom presents him. The playwrights give Morrie one negative moment early on, when he describes getting his fatal diagnosis: he says he wished the sun would be extinguished, that the children would stop laughing, because he was going to die. St. Morrie quickly realizes that the world is not about him and that's it - there is not a word of complaint or self-pity for the rest of the play. While that is admirable, it is neither typical of terminal patients nor, dare I say, particularly dramatic. That's why Tuesdays With Morrie isn't so much a play as an inspirational lecture presented as a dialogue.

Because it's not really in Albom's interest to go into the realities of physical decay and palliative care, he doesn't. As a weekly visitor as opposed to a primary caregiver, he probably was spared the gory details. I wondered what the opening night crowd, attending a fund-raiser for the Maimonides Geriatric Centre Auxiliary, thought of this sanitized vision.

The production stars Bernie Passeltiner, an actor previously seen at the Segal in Visiting Mr. Green, another play about a young man paying weekly visits to an old one, although the resemblance ends there. He is simply adorable here as the aphorism-spouting sociology professor. As Mitch, Marcel Jeannin hits all the right notes. They get to act on my favourite all-time John Dinning set. It is functional without being pedestrian, highly detailed but not in the least prosaic. I loved the sense of being indoors and outdoors at once.

As drama, Tuesdays With Morrie is no King Lear, but if you're in the market for a spring tonic, go.

Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie Runs to May 22 at the Segal (aka The Saidye, 5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine), 739-7944

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