“Seeing People” is a short play that has evolved from the playwright’s experience with her mother’s decline following her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It is also a condensation of key scenes from her book, Mum, Alzheimer’s and Me: Staying Alive. The play dramatizes the decline caused by Alzheimer’s disease, a slow journey to dementia. But it’s much more; it is also a descent into invisibility. The elderly Alzheimer’s victim essentially becomes a person unseen.
"Seeing People" was submitted to the Dubuque Fine Arts Players, One- Act Playwriting Contest, where it was placed in the top 10 finalists. Enjoy "Seeing People" below.
Seeing People
The scene: a typical bathroom of a typical room in a typical nursing home. The audience sees a toilet and a wheelchair downstage.
Mother/Tina: an elderly nursing home resident who uses a wheelchair and suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Wanderer/Myrtle: an elderly nursing home resident who uses a walker and suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Mary: Adult woman, Tina’s daughter. She has been the primary caregiver outside the nursing home for six years and has tried to engage her mother in the relationship they once enjoyed. The ordeal has been emotionally grueling.
Nurse: Nondescript male or female.
Neurologist: Man or woman wearing a stethoscope, watching as the audience does, but from upstage, behind the characters; dictating into a machine. He is detached, an observer. After he speaks, he uses a gesture, a finger pointing downstage as though to cue action.
Voices : Other woman, hospital personnel.
……………………………….
Stage is dark, voice of doctor/neurologist, as lights come up upstage: My patient underwent a Cognistat evaluation which showed a significant impairment in memory and orientation but with relative preservation of other areas of cognition like language, which is a bit unusual, but based on the relatively gradual, progressive nature of the complaints, the lack of other neurologic signs and the severity of memory impairment, a primary dementing illness such as Alzheimer’s is a strong consideration. The patient’s dementia is likely Alzheimer’s. Action cue.
Lights come up downstage on elderly woman sitting on toilet, facing audience, her Depends undergarment gathered around her ankles, a roll of toilet paper on her lap. Her daughter Mary is sitting in the wheelchair next to the toilet.
Another elderly woman using a walker wanders into the bathroom. Her gaze is downward, then up at Mary and her mother, then out at the audience, as though looking for someone. Then she walks out.
Mary, puzzled: Did you see that? Do you know who she is, Mum?
Mother: She’s one of the inmates here. I have no privacy.
The wanderer returns.
Mary,courteously, to the wandering resident: Excuse me, but you’re in the wrong room.
Wandering Resident, confused: Wrong room? Oooooh. She turns around and exits.
Mary: They’re not inmates, Mum. They’re residents, like you. It’s not a prison.
Nurse, knocking on door but not waiting for a response: Tina, did you have a bowel movement?
Mother, confused: I don’t know. I don’t have to go.
Mary, to the nurse, trying to help: I’ll let you know before I leave. Oh, who was that woman who just came in here and left?
Nurse: She’s a resident and she’s quite a wanderer.
Nurse smiles and leaves.
Mother: I have no privacy. Who was that woman?
Mary: She’s one of the nurses. She works here.
Mother, as she peels toilet tissue into her hand: Well, are you ever smart. I didn’t know that.
Mary: And the other one was …the wanderer. She sings the Dion song, The Wanderer-Cause I’m a wanderer, yeah a wanderer, I roam around and around and around and around…Remember that song?
Mother, not focused on the humor or the music, something else on her mind. She looks at toilet paper she recently put in her hand: What’s this for?
Mary: It’s for wiping yourself after you’re done.
Mother moves one hip off the toilet seat as though to use the toilet paper.
Mary: No, not yet. You haven’t gone yet.
Mother: Why am I here? I mean, in this place. People are sick here. I feel fine.
Mary: You are fine, Mum. You’re here, well, until they invent a pill that fixes your memory.
Mother: My memory is bad, all right. It’s wicked.
Mary: You know, sometimes I forget things, too, like I go down to the basement and forget what I went there for. Does that ever happen to you?
Mother, smiles and nods now that she has company in her memory lapses: Uh huh. Pause, then to Mary. Are we related?
Mother: You’re my daughter? Incredulous. So you’re my daughter and you came here to see me?
Mary: Yes.
Mother: Well, is that ever nice. (She stares in childlike amazement, not really recognizing Mary as her daughter, but happy for the company.)
Mary: I brought you some more pictures. These might jog your memory. See, Rick and me right after we got married.
Mother, very pleased grin: You married?
Mary: Yes.
Mother, delighted as if Mary has just shared an intimate secret: Are you happy?
Mary: Yes, I am; Rick is a very nice man. Look at this picture. Don’t you think he’s kind of handsome?
The mother is holding one framed photo in each of her hands. She looks from one to the other, a study in concentration.
Mother, absolutely fascinated: You mean you’re married to this guy? And this guy married my daughter?
Mary: Yes.
Mother, looking from one face to another, can hardly contain herself: He’s married to my daughter! Is that ever a coincidence!
Mary is the one who’s confused now; she looks into the audience, stifles a chuckle, shrugs her shoulders.
Mother: Am I married?
Mary: You were. You’re a widow now. Dad-Roy-died. Here he is. And see this? My bother Billy, your son Billy, when he was 12.
Mother, excited: Oh, he must be a pretty big kid by now.
Mary, uncertain how to proceed here: He died. This picture was taken just before he died.
Mother, looking like she’s trying to figure out something but can’t quite grasp it: Where are my kids? Where are Mary and Peggy?
Mary, apprehensive: I’m Mary, Mum.
Mother, persistent: No, the other Mary. My Mary… and Peggy. They’re little. Are they at school?
Mary, after a painful pause: They’re fine. For lack of a better answer. They’re home.
Mother: I don’t think they know I’m here. I think I forgot to leave a note.
She is a study in fear and worry, trying to figure this out as the lighting fades to dark suggesting night time.
Neurologist: Sundowner syndrome. Increased agitation later in the day. This Alzheimer’s patient is not able to think herself out of anxiety, may seem irascible. There can be delusions and there is no point in trying to reason with a patient in a delusional state. My advice is try to help her though the delusion. Action cue.
We see only the mother now, not the toilet. She is seated in the wheelchair, and she is picking up her old fashioned telephone, looking at the number pasted to the phone as she dials, then holding the phone to her ear. Her muscles are tense, her hands a flutter. She’s intensely worried and agitated. A phone is ringing. The ringing stops when the phone is picked up on the other end.…
Mother, breathless: Mary? Mary, have you seen your brother?
Mary appears upstage, lights dim. She has just answered her phone.
Mary: Is that you, Mum? It’s four in the morning.
Mother: I know. That’s why I’m calling. Billy. Billy. You were there.
Mary: Are you talking about your brother, Bill?
Mother, desperate: No. No. YOUR brother, Bill. Here. He was here in this room with six other little boys and they went to the lake. He’s been gone so long; he knows I’m worried.
Mary: What lake, Mum? Do you mean Foxbrook Lake?
Mother: No, not that lake.
Mary: Do you mean Lake Michigan?
Mother: No.
Mary: Is the lake in Florida?
Mother: Yes, it’s in Florida. You were there.
Mary: All right, Mum. I’m getting my car keys now. I’ll go to Florida right now and I’ll find him and bring him back. I’ll be able to find him, okay?
Mother: Oh, thank you. Oh, I hope so.
Mary: So don’t worry.
Mother: I can’t help it.
Mary: Okay, I’m going now to get Billy. Goodbye.
Mother: Thank you. She rocks herself in her chair, stares into space as the scene fades to black.
…………………………….
Neurologist, as Mary passes him on her way downstage: One of the most frequently asked questions of Alzheimer’s patients is “Where is my mother?” They also insist that they want to go home although they can’t tell you where home is. Action cue.
Lights come up downstage, in the present, and still in the bathroom on the toilet…
Mother: I don’t have to go. Anxious but not belligerent. I don’t have to go.
The wandering resident enters the bathroom again. Mary is familiar with her wanderings now, but she is impatient this time.
Mary: Excuse me, you’re in the wrong room again.
Wandering resident, looks up at her and smiles: Wrong room? Another one? Then she turns around and walks out.
Mary rises, heads toward door, turns to speak to mother.
Mary: I’m going to tell the nurse that lady is wandering into your room again. Pause, then an attempt to lighten the mood. Don’t pick up any strange men while I’m gone.
Mother: Fat chance.
Mary: Or if you do, pick up two. One for me and one for you.
Mother: You already have one. Forget the men. I want a car. Get me out of here.
Mary looks to her left and right outside the room, see no one and returns to her mother’s bathroom.
Mary: I don’t see anybody out there
Mother, waving her roll of toilet paper with one hand and reaching toward Mary with the other as though seeing her daughter for the first time today:
Oh, I’m so glad you came. Do you have a car?
Mary: Yes.
Mother: Oh good. Let’s get out of here.
Mary: After you have a bowel movement.
Mother: I don’t have to go.
Mary, rolling her eyes and then focusing again on her mother: Okay, give it some time. She has a family photo in her hand. Look, Mum, see this? Dad and his nine brothers and sisters.
Mother, looking at them: They never come to see me. I think it’s because I’m not fun anymore. Maybe I should get a job.
Mary, quickly trying to reassure her: No, Mum. You are fun. And I come to see you almost every day.
Mother: Oh, I know you do. I don’t know what I did to deserve you. I mean, how did I produce you?
Mary, enjoying this lucid moment when her mother knows and appreciates her: Oh, what a nice thing to say. Mum, some of them don’t come because they’ve passed away. The others live far away.
Mother: Ralph’s not gone, is he?
Mary: I’ll point to the ones that have passed away. As she points, Gone… Gone. .. Gone… Gone…
Mother, in a beat, taking the photo from Mary and pointing: Going. ..Going... Going... Going.
Mary chuckles.
Mother: How old am I?
Mary: How old do you think you are?
Mother: Don’t ask me. I don’t know. Thirty-six?
Mary: No, guess again.
Mother: Which way do I go?
Mary: Up
Mother: I don’t know. How old am I?
Mary: You’re 82.
The mother’s jaw drops, her upper denture pops out. She is in disbelief, looks confused.
Mary, trying to reassure while helping put her denture back in: But you don’t look it. You look much younger. This, with the denture in her hand, strikes her as humorous. You’re the best looking woman here.
Mother: Fat lot of good it does me. Agitated, she starts again to get up from the toilet. Looks worried. Mary pulls her down.
Mary: What are you thinking about? You look so worried. What are you thinking about?
Mother: I don’t know. My mind is a blank. I want to go home now. I haven’t seen my mother in a long time. I don’t feel good.
Mary: What do you mean you don’t feel good?
Mother: I just feel funny. I think my health is failing.
Mary: Let’s sing a song. Mary begins to sing a song her mother knows, they lyrics to the Irving King drinking song: Show me the way to go home. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.
Mother and Mary, in unison now: I had a drink about an hour ago and it went right to my head. During the singing, Mary hears splashing/flatulence, evidence that the mother is having a bowel movement, etc. She giggles.
Mother and Mary, singing gaily now: Where ever I may roam, on land or sea or foam, you will always hear me singing this song; show me the way to go home.
Mary is smiling, delighted that her initiating the song has successfully produced a bowel movement and her mother has remembered all the lyrics.
Mary: You are still lots of fun. All we need now is a beer, Mum.
A dark, annoyed expression replaces the smile on the mother’s face. She squints curiously at Mary.
Mother: You just called me Mum.
The remark has killed a brief and happy moment of levity and brought Mary back to the reality of her mother’s not knowing her. She struggles not to betray her disappointment, speaks quietly, almost apologetic.
Mary: You, you must remind me of my mother…Tina.
Mother and daughter strike a similar and defeated pose as the lights on them dim.
Neurologist, upstage, takes audience to a past time: a pleasant woman, age 78, resides with a man, Doug. Her daughters brought her here from Florida after learning her electricity had been turned off because she had not remembered to pay bills. She had lost 40 pounds, has since had surgery for internal hemorrhaging and recovered physically. However, her memory loss, likely Alzheimer’s, worsening dementia, and her care needs make a long-term care facility an appropriate placement. Action cue.
Mary has moved upstage. Mary’s cell phone rings; she answers.
Mary: Hello?
Other woman: Is this Tina’s daughter?
Mary: Yes.
Other Woman: Doug just called me and said you were coming down here to Florida to see your mother. He told me about the electricity and everything being turned off in her condo. Defensively. You know, I went over while he was gone and asked Tina if she needed help paying her bills, but she said no
Mary: Well, she doesn’t know she needs help; that’s the problem. She’s very confused. When you came over, did she seem weak, kind of wobbly walking?
Other Woman: No, she seemed okay.
Mary: She did? My sister and I found a trail of dried blood leading from her bed to her toilet. She must have been hemorrhaging at some point but she isn’t right now. She’s having trouble walking, though… You’re a friend of Doug’s?
Other woman: Oh, yes. I’ve been going with Doug for two years. But, no, your mother seemed fine to me.
Mary, stunned, puts her hand to her forehead. This news of the relationship is a revelation to her. She hits her forehead with her free hand, asks herself: Where have I been? Back into the phone. You’re going with Doug? But Doug has been living with my mother, here in her condo, except when he’s traveling. On the verge of tears. I don’t think she knows he has another girlfriend.
Other woman, brazen, laughs raucously: Another girlfriend!? Of course she knows. Doug thinks fondly of her; she’s like a mother to him. We take her around with us a lot. We took her out with us for Christmas dinner last year.
Mary, angry now: So you’re his girlfriend and he asked you to check up on her and you didn’t notice anything wrong? I mean, when you looked at her, what did you see?
Other woman, indignant and flustered: Well, I didn’t walk through the whole condo, she didn’t seem…
Mary, lowers the phone, puts her free hand on her forehead, then back on the phone: Tell Doug not to bother to come back here. We’re taking our mother home. She looks long at the phone, turns it off as lights come up again on the toilet scene.
……………………………………….
Mary returns downstage. Her mother is seated in her wheelchair next to the toilet. She is much degraded since we have last seen her. Mary approaches, sits on the toilet and is jolted by her mother’s appearance. She is slumping to one side of her wheelchair, her arm is trembling and she seems to be trying, unsuccessfully, to hold toothbrush. When Mary asks her how she is, her response is a barely audible, “I don’t feel good.” A nurse approaches with the mother’s medication which she spoons into her mouth with applesauce. The mother’s lips are dry and crusted. The mother’s upper dentures are floating loosely in her mouth; she is champing but not swallowing.
Nurse, sympathetically, to Mary: A lot of the residents are sick, vomiting and diarrhea. The state ombudsman was here this week-she got sick too- said it’s a gastrointestinal disturbance that struck every nursing home in the county.
Mary: Mum seems completely changed from just a few days ago. What do you think? If she’s been sick like this, maybe she’s dehydrated. I mean she probably can’t tell you much, the dementia and everything
Nurse: It’s kind of hard to tell if they’re dehydrated unless they’re hooked up to a catheter, but she’s been on 24- hour report since Friday.
Mary: What does that mean?
Nurse: Each shift nurse takes her vitals, blood pressure, temperature, respiration, and records them.
Mary: That’s it? That’s all you’re doing? I mean, look at her!
Nurse: We’re following protocol. Unless her vital signs are outside the normal range, that’s all we can do.
Mary, increasingly agitated: That must be a pretty broad normal range. She’s been here for six years. I’ve never seen her like this. She can barely talk. She can’t hold something in her hand. I don’t think she can even swallow what you just put in her mouth. If she’s throwing up and not swallowing, if she can’t hold a toothbrush, can she hold a glass of water? Isn’t dehydration dangerous for elderly people? Shouldn’t she be on an IV? What about sending her to the hospital?
Nurse, harried but not unsympathetic: We can send her to a hospital if the family insists. As if sharing a secret… They would hook her up to intravenous fluids right away in the ER.
Mary to the nurse: Then send her!
She kneels before her mother, looks up at her face; the mother looks down at her. Mary puts her hand on her mother’s hand: You’re going to go to the hospital, Mum, and everything will be all right.
Mother, struggling to speak: Are you my mother?
Rattled by the question, Mary rises, covers her ears and begins to back upstage as she hears the beginning of a cacophony of hospital sounds that increase in volume, alarms and the words dehydration, sepsis, kidney failure, viscous urine, melena, a continual flow, unresponsive; your mother isn’t going to bounce back this time, a few days, palliative care, morphine.
She backs upstage, hands over her ears until she is not seen and the sounds cease. A nurse wheels the mother upstage into the darkness. Downstage and in the light, Myrtle wanders into the mother’s bathroom, then out again. The nurse returns the empty wheelchair downstage.
Mary returns downstage, enters the bathroom, begins to collect the framed photos. She sits in her mother’s empty wheelchair. The wandering resident walks in again and looks into the audience, then slowly turns around and walks back out the door. Mary shakes her head. But the wanderer soon reappears through the doorway.
Mary, short with her: You’re in the wrong room.
Wandering Resident, vulnerable to the critical tone: Nobody will talk to me. Through tears. I’m just like everyone else, but no one will talk to me.
Mary, checks herself, takes a deep breath and softens the tone: Who are you looking for? Are you looking for my mother, Tina?
Wandering resident looks at the toilet, appears to be thinking.
Mary, in a gesture of hospitality: Here . Why don’t you sit down? We can talk then.
Wandering resident crosses to the toilet, moves her walker to the side, starts to pull down her pants.
Mary, reaching out to stop her: No, no, just sit down, like in a chair.
Wandering resident, sitting on the toilet now, fully clothed, and turning to face Mary: Have you seen Myrtle Halverson?
Mary, thinks, states the fact: You’re looking for Myrtle Halverson.
Wandering Resident: I’m trying to find her. Have you seen her?
Mary: …No, I haven’t.
Wandering Resident: Well, if you do, would you please tell her I’m trying to find her? I think I have completely lost her.
Nurse appears, looks sympathetically at Mary: Can I get someone to help you move Tina’s things?
Mary: No, I’ll manage…um…is there a Myrtle Halverson here somewhere?
Nurse: She points to the wanderer. That’s Myrtle. Nurse leaves.
Mary realizes the enormity of Myrtle’s loss, puts her hand on Myrtle’s arm, then puts a hand on either side of her head, cups her face. Don’t worry, Myrtle. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that she’s in here somewhere. Just because you don’t see her anywhere doesn’t mean she isn’t here.
Mary takes her photos, rises and turns to leave. Then she faces Myrtle.
Mary: I lost someone, too. But I’ll come to see you later, if you like.
Myrtle, brightening: To see me? When?
Mary: After lunch tomorrow.
Myrtle: Don’t forget.
Mary: I’ll remember. She’s looking at framed family photos she is holding. Going, going, going, … gone. Gone home. Then to Myrtle-Anyway, I‘ll remember.
Myrtle: Remember what?
Mary, as she exits: To see you tomorrow, Myrtle.
Mary exits. Myrtle gets up, forgets her walker and shuffles out, stops to peer at the neurologist upstage. The neurologist doesn’t see her. He turns off his dictation machine, cues the lights to go out downstage, walks past Myrtle and exits upstage. Myrtle turns to peer at the audience and all the lights go out.