In the hot seat

No one pushes Kyle Jespersen around.

In preparation to portray wheelchair marathoner Rick Hansen in a new Manitoba Theatre for Young People production, the Vancouver actor rolled around the city for months exclusively under his own arm power. He was adamant about getting around without anyone's helping hand.

"First of all, there is nothing to push on my chair," says Jespersen, prior to a rehearsal for Rick: The Rick Hansen Story, which has its public première tomorrow at Canwest Performing Arts Centre. "Then there's an unspoken rule in the wheelchair community: 'Don't touch my chair unless I ask you.'"

The able-bodied Jespersen, 31, conducts his interview at MTYP in a wheelchair, a seat he was initially afraid to take when he was first here for a workshop in Winnipeg last September. Trying to fill the wheelchair of a Canadian hero like Hansen will do that to you.

"It was scary playing somebody who has done something amazing with their life," says the broad-shouldered, six-foot-tall Jespersen, who shares Hansen's ready smile. "It was trepidatious for me to get in the chair and go out in public because of the myriad things that could happen. Would I fall over? Would I find an accessible bathroom? My No. 1 rule is that when I got into the wheelchair, I didn't get out until I got back home."

Rick, written by Vancouver playwright Dennis Foon (New Canadian Kid, Kindness), remembers Hansen before he became the Man in Motion and pushed his wheelchair through 34 countries on a two-year, 40,000-kilometre tour to raise awareness and $26 million for research into spinal-cord injuries. At 15, he was a gifted athlete who was best pals with a young musician named Don Adler in Williams Lake, B.C. They were hitchhiking home from a fishing trip in 1973, riding in the back of a pickup truck when it flipped over.

Adler was unhurt but Hansen was left paralyzed from the waist down. Foon focuses on how the accident impacts their friendship, how Hansen overcame the biggest challenge of his life and inspired Don to overcome his.

After the Winnipeg run Rick moves on to Vancouver, where it debuts March 13, the same day that the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games opens. Hansen is expected to be in attendance. Adler will be there, too, both as a character in the play and, as in Winnipeg, to take questions from the audiences.

"For me, it's a pretty proud moment," says Adler, a hotshot 53-year-old guitarist who co-wrote the musical score with former Winnipegger Cathy Nosaty. "This play is about Rick's youth and I was a big part of that time. There is a whole generation of youth who haven't heard about Rick and his story. They need to know about the value of a lifelong friendship."

Jespersen's entry into the world of wheels was tentative, and not only because he was worried he would hurt himself.

"I'm surprised I didn't break my own spine," he says.

His main fear was being exposed as a fraud in public. The former rugby player knew his large quadriceps were a dead giveaway that he was not a paraplegic.

"That made me feel a little insecure, for sure," says the Calgary-born performer. "My answer was that I was recently injured and my legs hadn't yet atrophied. When strangers asked me questions, I told them what Rick would tell them. When they asked about my injuries I would say thoracic 10 and 12, just like Rick."

Jespersen even flew to Winnipeg in wheelchair character. He wondered if it was illegal to pretend to be a paraplegic.

"What I was most afraid of during the flight was falling asleep and moving my legs," he says. "I forced myself to stay awake just in case."

Adler worked at the Rick Hansen Foundation following the Man in Motion tour and often heard his friend's inspirational talks, but never really listened to the message that no obstacle is insurmountable. One day during another fishing trip, Hansen challenged Adler to make the best of his untapped musical talents.

"Spend some time with this guy and you walk away energized," Adler says during his stay in Winnipeg. "Somehow he makes you believe in yourself and that anything is possible."

Adler was inspired to apply himself and see where his guitar picking could take him -- which led to him being crowned the 2007 International Fingerstyle Champion.

"It took me 25 years to learn a lesson I should have learned on the road with him," Adler says. "I think it's an important message."

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

Theatre preview

Rick: The Rick Hansen Story

Manitoba Theatre for Young People

Opens tomorrow, to March 4

Tickets: $13.60

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 25, 2010 D1