By Bill Peckham
photo by Karol Franks
The big surprise was that Anna flew in for the Who Lives premier too. At 6PM my Mom and I met a group across from the theater for dinner. After eating we walked over to the theater and there was Anna standing in the Lobby with a smirk on her face. If you are member of IHD you can see pictures of the event including this one of the first moments after I realize that Anna is at the theater (and it includes my Mom to the right).
At dinner it was Lori Hartwell the President of the Renal Support Network and Executive Producer of Who Lives, Karol from IHD, Sharon a friend from Seattle and RSN stalwart who had also flown down, Bonnie also from the Seattle area and Bonnie's sister. Bonnie went through the committee in 1967 so it was special to have her at the premier of the play. I have to say she looks great and is a living tribute to the work the committee accomplished.
This gets to my complaint about the play – it didn't portray the actual events. The author created his dramatic tension without illustrating the historic dynamics. Listening to the actual participants tell their stories over the years the thing that has always struck me was how collaborative the whole enterprise was, the doctors, nurses, staff, the community and at the center of it all the patients, who were full and engaged collaborators. In those early days everyone worked as a team to figure out how to make this new life sustaining treatment work. Even people from outside the kidney specialty made significant contributions to the field.
My Mom liked the performance as a play and I think Anna can review the production as a dramatic performance once she returns to NY on Sunday. The acting was good, the set was interesting – everything was in black and white except one character used a red cloth at various moments and I'm not sure what that symbolized. I did notice that the Seattle skyline at the back of the set was circa late '80s. The play does do the job of getting people to talk about the issues involved and about kidney disease. After the performance my Mom and I spent the rest of the evening discussing the story so in that respect I think the play got the job done.
There is a great story to tell about what happened in Seattle from 1960 to when the committee was disbanded in about 1968, Who Lives tells a different story. It takes some of the technical elements of the historic record but in many ways the play had one foot in the '90s and another foot in '60s which created some odd dissonance. When did people develop a sense of medical entitlement? When did people develop an expectation that medicine could cure them no matter what the disease? The play's drama relies on this attitude, yet I think that is a recent development and was not part of the '60s mind set.
Go see the play and have a nice evening enjoying a well produced and preformed production. And then check out the Nephrology Oral History Project or Sharron's article for the real story.
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