Jennifer Ward-Lealand and her husband of 35 years, fellow thespian Michael Hurst are tackling a brave, powerful and beautiful new theatre production together. In Other Words is a story of love and loss, forcing the couple to think about their own relationship…
“You think you know someone after 10 years,” says Jennifer Ward-Lealand, “but boy, you really know someone after 30 years – and then you really, really know someone after 40 years.”
Jennifer Ward-Lealand knows a thing or two about love. One of NZ’s most celebrated actors/directors, at 61, she has now clocked up 40 years together with her husband, fellow actor/director Michael – 35 of them as husband and wife. And yes, that’s made all the more impressive by the fact that in ‘celebrity years’, that’s more like 8,000.
She says there’s plenty of ‘secrets’ to long-lasting love, but for her there’s two key ones, that spring to mind first:
“I think that one, maintaining a sense of humour is extremely important,” she says. “And two, I think that just learning to compromise is important. You can’t really change someone else, but you can change how you react to things.”
Jennifer says she also puts the longevity of her happy marriage down to the fact that she and Michael have been able to grow together, sharing a common love: their children, and their careers in the theatre.
“I’m really happy that I’m married to a performer because we each really understand what the other does,” she says. “We know exactly what it’s like. And it also means that we have to take turns – someone needs to run the show at home, while the other person is extremely busy with the theatre show. It’s a well-worn expression, but a relationship has to be give and take, and that is certainly true for Michael and I.”
As their sons have grown, there’s been less pressure to stagger their work, and the couple have now acted in 22 shows together since they met whilst trainiig at Theatre Corporate in 1983. But, next month for the first time they’re coming together on and off the stage, for the theatre show, In Other Words, which they are both starring in, and directing.
“I’ve directed him in a few things before, and he’s directed me in a few things over the years – and of course we’ve acted together in a number of plays, but this will be our first time doing both,” she says. “We’ve played a husband and wife before, in a play in 2005, but this is a really interesting show, of course, because, it could be us. It’s about our age, and it’s people who’ve been in a long-term relationship, like us.”
Thankfully, however, that’s where the comparisons stop.
Because, In Other Words follows a couple who are grappling with Alzheimer’s disease. The award-winning show written by Mathew Seager is an intimate, humorous and deeply moving love story which explores the effects of Alzheimer’s and the transformative power of music to help us remember the past, connect with the present and hope for the future. Characters Arthur and Jane – connected by the music of Frank Sinatra – retell how they met, fell in love and tried to cope with an encroaching illness.
Anyone who has had a loved one affected by Alzheimer’s or dementia will know what an absolute hideous, sonofabitch rotten disease it is. The torture of having to just stand by and watch the person you once held so dear, being slowly robbed away from you, is utterly horrible.
And while Jennifer and Michael have been lucky to have not had close family members go through it, they’ve recently heard of younger friends being diagnosed (one of the only things worse that dementia is early onset dementia) – and obviously, now being deep in this subject matter has really given them pause for thought.
“We’ve obviously thought, ‘what would it be like if that happened to one of us – what would that look like?” she says. “It has really made me think of the bravery of people who are looking after people with dementia. I was reading this incredible statistic, that in the 2018 census, 14% of the adult population were unpaid carers. Isn’t that extraordinary? People are living longer, and more people are living at home, rather than going into institutional care. We’ve got a lot of people close to us who are dealing with this, so it’s very close to us. They think there are about 70,000 Kiwis living with dementia or Alzheimer’s currently – and that number is only going to go up.”
Unfortunately Jennifer is right on the money with those stats – currently four out of every five Kiwis know, or have known someone living with dementia. And yes, the situation is only set to get worse, with almost 170,000 likely to be living with dementia by 2050. Currently it’s thought to cost us $2.5 billion, but that will reach around $5.9 by 2050.
It’s a sobering thought, one that makes Jennifer feel that she and Michael are doing the right thing by bringing In Other Words to the theatre – opening people’s eyes to the realities of the disease, but also bringing a bit of hope. “Because, at the heart of this story, it is this warm love story,” says Jennifer.
And, while there certainly are concerns and fears about aging, she says there have been so many facets of aging that she is enjoying immensely. “I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but one of the greatest thing is that you stop worrying so much about what you ‘should’ do, and start to follow what’s really just important to you,” she says.
In Other Words is being performed at Q Theatre in Auckland from September 3 – 15 and tickets start at $30.
