Modus Vivaldi

Last Good Evening from Heidelberg, Herr Goethe!

                The play “Wer sind Sie?” (Who are you?) had quite an impact on me, probably because of my own age, and definitely because of my love for my “American mother,” my ex-mother-in-law for more than 40 years. She is approaching 99, still calls to tell me about political and cultural events on television, still sends newspaper clippings, still feeds crows and blue jays every morning, still remembers our first meeting; at least she remembers that we met in Heidelberg; I added that it was in the fall of 1963. But she also battles moments of confusion, of darkness, of fear, moments we wish she wouldn’t have to endure, but know that we can’t protect her from.

                “Wer sind Sie?” is a study of dementia. How do we treat a woman who is gradually sinking into the twilight, allowing less and less of the external world to penetrate and only remembering fragments of her own inner world? Through family dialogue the French author Michel Lengliney explores the subject of home care vs. institutional care; through the mother’s memories he gives us a melancholy, sensitive insight into the “patient’s” past, her love, her ambitions. He also exposes us to her grumbling, crumpling presence, her frustrations with the daughter who is the policing, decision-making force in her life now. We see her unrealistic adoration of a son who has gambled away his future. Four actors: mother, daughter, son, doctor. Dinah Hinz, who plays the mother, has been acting for 60 years, and this is, in my eyes, a stellar performance. Daughter and son, Bettina Franke and Armin Schlagwein, torn between sibling rivalry and love for their mother, are so real, I want to walk on stage and help them solve their problems. The doctor, Hans Zwimpfer, at first politely professional, becomes an engaged participant in the family drama.

                The Zimmer Theater in Heidelberg under Ute Richter produced a beautifully conceived brochure to go along with the play; non-fiction as well as fictional accounts, poetry, and details about the play give us a gentle look at dementia. My favorite is a very short poem by  Maschka Kaleko:

Die Nacht,

In der

Das Fuerchten

Wohnt,

Hat auch

Die Sterne

Und den

Mond.

The night in which fear looms also has the stars and the moon.

                A comforting thought that lets me remember how Mother sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and points to the big skylight above the staircase.

                “Look at the moon,” she says, “Isn’t it beautiful!”

                A phrase, uttered by Dinah Hinz, made me sit up in bed this morning. She is speaking of her love for music and her “favorite” son’s talent and instead of speaking of “Modus Operandi” – a phrase that has slipped her mind - she speaks of “Modus Vivaldi,” thus revealing the basics, the beauty of music in her life. She makes lists; she cleans her closet of clutter; she asks repeatedly what day it is; and in the end she reminds herself to tell her daughter that she loves her.

                I wondered about my own "Modus Vivaldi", Herr Goethe. I’ve always claimed that my travels are to produce a map of places, so deeply engraved into my brain, that they will last into the twilight. I imagine myself sitting at my desk, letting my thoughts roam from Hadrian’s Wall to the Library at Ephesus, to the Philosopher’s Way in Heidelberg, to your garden house in Weimar, across the coastal range in Guernsey, into the mountains of Jamaica, the streets of Cairo, the ruins of Marrakesh, the seashore of Carmel, the harbor of Victoria and on and on until I fall asleep forever.

                 I’ll call it “Modus Memorandi”