Special
Report Between the lines, glimpses of grace
By RETTA BLANEY
Special to the National Catholic Reporter New
York
When Jerome Kern and Oscar
Hammerstein II wrote the song Life Upon the Wicked Stage for their
1927 musical Show Boat, they were playing on a sentiment many
people felt about show business then, and still do today. Those people,
however, are not theater people. For many in the theater and those who know and
love it, the transforming power of dramatic literature makes theater-going
almost a religious experience.
The ties between theater and the spiritual realm go way back.
Aristotle described theater as an essentially religious ritual and
saw the audience in the role of communicants. He thought the right balance of
terror and pity would result in a collective catharsis and send the audience
home feeling cleansed.
In quite another way, centuries later St. Ignatius Loyola combined
the two worlds in his spiritual exercises. He made scripture come alive for his
students by telling them to visualize themselves as characters in the stories,
such as a stable boy in Bethlehem. And their imaginations employed every sense
to enter into the experience.
It might seem a far leap from Aristotle or Ignatius Loyola to the
Great White Way of 2000. But the resonance between theater and spiritual
experience remains strong. People in the theater recognize the
possibility of the moment of transformation, said Msgr. Michael C.
Crimmins, pastor of St. Malachys/The Actors Chapel, the Roman
Catholic ministry to the performing arts community. Theres an
appreciation of the Christian doctrine of grace, of glimpses of something more
than we see on the surface of things. There are moments in the theater when
people are touched and changed, and that is like the experience of
worship.
Echoing that sentiment, one artistic director, not one who
practices organized religion, said, Religion tries to help people
understand humanity, which is the role of a good play. In a theater or
house of worship, he said, You are one, for that time, a group together
experiencing something.
If the religious connection is true for theater in general over
the centuries, it is especially apparent in some high profile Broadway
offerings. Three contending for this years crop of Tony Awards -- the
revivals of Jesus Christ Superstar, Amadeus, and
A Moon for the Misbegotten -- along with the long-playing Les
Misérables, are especially rich in obvious religious content and
imagery.
Jesus Christ Superstar is a musical that is part show
biz and part Good Friday reenactment. I was prepared for the entertainment side
-- loud rock music, flashing lights and young dancers in skimpy costumes -- but
I was surprised by how effectively Jesus passion and death are
handled.
The show is based on the last seven days of Jesus life. As
Christians we know the story is compelling, but songwriters Andrew Lloyd Webber
and Tim Rice have shaped it into an experience that attracts a wide audience.
Its original production had a successful run on Broadway in the early 1970s,
and an even more successful eight-year stay in London, where it holds the
record as the fifth longest-running musical in West End history.
In this production, Judas, played by Tony Vincent, steals the
show. Jesus (Glenn Carter) is wimpy by comparison, at least in the first act
where he looks more like a spaced-out flower child than charismatic leader. But
then, its often easier to portray a villain than a hero, especially a
hero who is both true God and true man. That ones hard enough just to
contemplate.
Judas, like all of Jesus followers, is urban hip, with
spiked peroxide hair, leather jacket and tight black jeans. As the show begins,
he sings of his fear that Jesus has taken his mission too far: You have
set them all on fire./ They think theyve found the new Messiah,/ and
theyll hurt you when they find theyre wrong./ I remember when this
whole thing began./ No talk of God then, we called you a man.
He still admires Jesus, but wants him to be quiet: Listen
Jesus do you care for your race?/ Dont you see we must keep in our
place?/ We are occupied,/ have you forgotten how put down we are?/ I am
frightened by the crowd,/ for we are getting much too loud,/ and theyll
crush us if we go too far.
But the crowd continues to surround Jesus until Caiaphas
fear is aroused, and he sings, ... like John before him,/ this Jesus must
die./ For the sake of the nation/ this Jesus must die. He has Jesus
called before him while Jesus followers continue to sing his praise
outside. Tell the rabble to be quiet,/ we anticipate a riot,
Caiaphas sings. This common crowd/ is much too loud./ Tell the mob who
sing your song/ that they are fools and they are wrong./ They are a curse,/
they should disperse.
To make a familiar story short, Pilot, cowed by the crowd now
calling for Jesus to be crucified, washes his hands of him. The staging turns
more serious as three guards beat Jesus in a dance-like pantomime. His
scourging is even more painful to watch and listen to. Pilot calls for each new
lash as Jesus body becomes more and more bloodied, until Pilot finally
stops at 39. The tormenters with their bloody hands then surround Jesus
limp body and taunt him further.
A punk rock Judas
The tension is broken a bit when Jesus is given his cross. Judas
reappears as a punk rock singer with a chorus of dancing girls to sing the
title song, Superstar: Every time I look at you I dont
understand,/ why you let the things you did get so out of hand.
The mood turns serious again as Jesus is nailed to the cross, an
event that takes place at the back of the stage as we watch a close-up of
Jesus face in anguish on an overhead screen. God forgive
them, he prays. They dont know what theyre
doing.
The cross is hoisted into its upright position and the crowd
gathers at its foot. The silence now is powerful after all the singing and
motion that preceded it. The only sound is when Jesus calls out his familiar
entreaties, ending with Father, into your hands I commend my
spirit. As his lifeless body is taken down from the cross, the followers
leave, and only Mary remains beside her sons corpse. The still starkness
of the ending is more dramatic than anything that has gone before.
I wish Lloyd Webber and Rice had taken the show through to the
resurrection, but I am moved by what they have given us. Despite all the
high-priced song and dance numbers, which I enjoyed, the image that remains
with me is that powerful crucifixion. Theater and religion support each other
well in this production.
In Amadeus, jealousy also leads to an innocent
mans death. As the play opens, the aged composer Antonio Salieri is
calling out to Mozart for forgiveness, a forgiveness that wont come
because Mozart is dead. But an obsessed Salieri wants to tell his story. He
draws us in by dispensing with the traditional fourth wall that
keeps actors on stage from acknowledging the audience. So we are able to
journey into the mind and soul of this bitter man.
His story begins when he is 16. Feeling that music is
Gods art, he kneels in church and makes a bargain with the
Almighty. I prayed with all my soul for fame. In exchange, he
promises to live with virtue and honor you with much music all the days
of my life. Believing his bargain has been accepted, he tells God:
I am your servant for life.
His desire seems on its way to fulfillment as he rises to the role
of court composer in Vienna. He feels he is living up to the bargain by
remaining faithful to his wife and by providing for needy musicians. But
Salieris servanthood is conditional, and his desire for fame outweighs
his love of God.
Mozart arrives at court acting like an outrageous adolescent, but
composing music that strikes Salieri to the core. The full impact of the
younger mans gift dawns on Salieri while he is alone reading
Mozarts music. It seemed I had heard the voice of God, he
says in awe and anguish, because this great gift was being given to the world
through the voice of an obscene child.
He calls out angrily to God: You gave me the desire to
praise you and then you made me mute. He demands to know what he has done
wrong. I worked and worked the talent you gave me. He had asked to
hear Gods voice: Now I hear it and it says one name, Mozart.
Wrestling with God
Salieri is the angry man wrestling with God, but he is no Job. He
is too self-righteousness. From this time were enemies, he
tells God, swearing, until my last breath I shall block you on earth as
far as I am able. He sets out to destroy Mozart as a way of punishing
God.
He takes a former student for a mistress and forsakes the poor.
But to his surprise, God shows him no anger. Salieri flourishes; his reputation
and stature at court grow while Mozarts gifts, thanks to Salieris
machinations, go unnoticed. I alone was empowered to recognize them for
what they were.
Finally, after Salieris 10 years of vengeance,
Mozart is impoverished and dying from kidney failure and exposure to the cold.
Salieri goes to him and confesses, but Mozart hides under a blanket babbling
nursery rhymes. Salieri leaves unabsolved, but he now understands the
nature of Gods punishment. He had asked for fame and he got it --
from people incapable of discerning the true gift. But even that is taken away
by Gods master stroke, as Mozarts music is celebrated
posthumously and Salieris is silenced. I survived to see myself
become extinct. He cuts his throat, but survives to become the
patron saint of mediocrities ... Mediocrities everywhere -- now and to come --
I absolve you all. Amen.
Absolution also is at work in A Moon for the
Misbegotten. Cherry Jones moves us beyond pity into empathy for her
character, Josie Hogan, in what scholars consider the most Catholic of Eugene
ONeills plays because it is the only one in which one of his broken
characters, Jim Tyrone, receives the absolution he is seeking. We feel how
deeply Josie loves Jim and we long for her to find happiness with him. But he
is too dissipated from years of drinking, and all he can hope for now is
forgiveness.
He lies in Josies arms one night to confess the events that
have been haunting him. Josie sits on a rock in front of her farmhouse and
together they resemble the Pietá as Jim weeps and she comforts. He is
consumed with guilt over his handling of his mothers death. She had
slipped into a coma while they were in California and, distraught at the
thought of losing her, he began drinking after two years of sobriety. He
believes she regained consciousness long enough to see him drunk, and this
thought plunged him into despair. Shewas the one person he loved, but she died
before he could be forgiven. I knew I was lost with all hope gone,
he tells Josie. All I could do was drink myself to death.
Escorting her body back east on the train, he stayed drunk, locked
in his sleeping car with a prostitute while his mothers body rested in
the baggage car. When the train arrived in New York he was too drunk to attend
to the disposition of her body.
The weight of this memory is unbearable until Josie becomes his
savior. As he cries on her breast, he receives his absolution. Im
the one person who loves you enough to forgive you. She assures him his
mother also hears and forgives, and promises, The sun will rise like
Gods peace in the souls dark sadness.
Jim sleeps on Josies breast and when he wakes at dawn is at
peace, like all my sins are forgiven. He leaves, redeemed by
Josies love, to face his pending death. When he is gone, the sun rises on
Josie alone at the farmhouse door. May you have your wish and die in your
sleep soon, Jim darling, she says to the distance. May you rest
forever in forgiveness and peace.
In this ending ONeill used the transforming power of theater
to grant his older brother, Jamie, absolution. Jims behavior is based on
Jamies after the ONeills mother died. ONeill was unable
to forgive his brother, who died of alcoholism in a sanitarium, with
ONeill refusing to visit him. The play was a way for ONeill to
forgive Jamie and help ease the playwrights own guilt over his lack of
compassion.
A show that is my favorite combination of good theater and good
theology is one that has been packing in audiences for more than 13 years --
Les Misérables. This beautiful musical presentation of
Victor Hugos novel is so anchored in the world of faith that a professor
at General Theological Seminary, the oldest Episcopal seminary, required his
first-year students to see it.
As I read the story and see the play, it is about the
conflict between the law and grace, the Rev. William A. Doubleday said.
It is the best archetypal exploration of that conflict I know. It is a
perpetual human struggle. Are we bound to the law or do we hope for grace and
do the best we can with the law?
These two sides are represented by Javert, the dogmatic police
inspector, and Jean Valjean who, Doubleday says, is an example of
Gods grace and love continuing to break into his life, and his sharing
that grace and love with others.
The play opens in 1815 in France as Valjean, who was found guilty
of stealing a loaf of bread for his starving nephew, is released from a chain
gang after 19 years. Unable to find acceptance because of his ex-convict
status, he finally is taken in by the local bishop. Embittered by his years of
hardship, Valjean steals the bishops silver goblets. When the police see
him with the silver and try to jail him, the bishop intervenes. He says the
goblets were a gift, and hands two silver candlesticks to Valjean, telling him
in front of the police that in his haste to leave he had forgotten the rest of
his gift. When the bishop and Valjean are alone, the bishop tells Valjean he
has bought your soul for God. Valjean considers this part of a
divine plan and changes his life.
New life threatened
Throughout the rest of the play, Valjean saves many lives, and
those saved refer to him as a saint and a savior. He
promises to provide for Cosette, the little daughter of a dying woman who tells
him, Good monsieur, you come from God in heaven and he pledges,
I will raise her to the Light. At that point, eight years after
stealing the silver, in a new location and with a new name, he has risen to the
position of mayor and factory owner, but his ability to care for Cosette is
threatened by Javert, who wants to return him to the chain gang for breaking
parole. For Javert, carrying out the law is a religious calling, and he judges
Valjean, a fugitive running,/ fallen from grace. He kneels to pray:
Lord let me find him,/ that I may see him,/ safe behind bars. He
wont give up: I am the law and the law is not mocked. But
Valjean is the man of grace: My soul belongs to God I know,/ I made that
bargain long ago./ He gave me hope when hope was gone./ He gave me strength to
journey on.
The years roll by and Javert, Valjean and Cosette come together as
the streets of Paris are rocked by revolution. Here Valjean sings one of my
favorite songs as a prayer for Marius, a student revolutionary in love with
Cosette. God on high,/ hear my prayer./ In my need,/ you have always been
there. When Marius is wounded, the now-elderly Valjean carries him to
safety through the sewers of Paris, a bearded savior carrying his cross.
In the final scene, Cosette and Marius leave their wedding
reception to attend the dying Valjean who is writing my last
confession. Forgive me all my trespasses and take me to your
glory, he sings. The spirits of Cosettes mother and a young
revolutionary appear to escort Valjean. He casts aside his mortal clothes and
rises in a snowy white gown as the women sing: Take my hand,/ and lead me
to salvation. Valjean stands between them as they sing: ... to love
another person is to see the face of God. They are joined by peasants and
those who died for their cause as all sing: They will live again in
freedom in the coming of the Lord./ They will walk behind the plowshare;/ they
will put away the sword. ... It is the future that they bring when tomorrow
comes.
This is the only play on Broadway that ends by evoking
Isaiahs vision of the future. Not all theater incorporates such obvious
religious themes as these four plays, but live theater is working its
transformative power all along The Great White Way. For actors, the sense of
shared community keeps them returning to the stage. F. Murray Abraham, who won
an Oscar for his film role as Salieri in Amadeus, returns because,
he says, no one has to tell him if he is good or not, he knows it from the
audience. And he recognizes the transforming power. He has said: The
Quakers believe God resides in each person. Even before I discovered Quakerism,
I was always looking for that sense of humanity in the characters I played and
trying to draw on that thing in myself that would reach everyone. He said
the faith and fervor he feels as an actor are close to a religion. It is
a calling for me. Im probably as close to God when Im performing as
when I pray.
Ive spent years interviewing stage actors and find most of
them are spiritual. Anyone who expects to have a theater career has to have
faith -- in a higher power, themselves or something beyond what can be seen
because even the best show closes and actors again find themselves out of work,
again holding herself/himself out for approval. An actors life means
regularly facing rejection. As Jesuit Fr. Joseph A. Kelly, Actors Chapel
parochial vicar, has said: Many are called, few are called back and only
one will get the part.
Congregations for actors
Because actors dont find acceptance easily, many turn to the
performing arts congregations in the theater district -- The Actors
Chapel, The Actors Temple, St. Lukes Lutheran or St. Clements
Episcopal Church. Of these, St. Clements really takes the combining of
theater and religion seriously. In the 1960s it was gutted and an Off-Broadway
theater built to co-exist with the parish; a portable altar, pulpit and
celebrants chair are put on stage every Sunday and Eucharist is
celebrated on the set of whatever play is running as the drama of liturgy takes
over for the drama of Off-Broadway. Theres no enduring drama that
does not have a theological message, the rector, the Rev. Barbara C.
Crafton, says.
As for theological messages from the theater, organized religions
might want to look to the stage for its example of inclusiveness.
Nontraditional, or color-blind, casting has been growing in New York for at
least a decade, although until recently mostly Off- and Off-Off Broadway. In
this way, a show is cast based on talent, not skin color, so a black actor can
star in plays like Henry VIII, a role black actors traditionally
hadnt played in interracial casts because we all know Henry wasnt
black. For this reason black actors tell me they find more openness in theater
than in films, and much more than in soaps, where black characters are outside
the main circle of principal characters. They point with hope to the current
Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate, in which Brian Stokes Mitchell,
a black actor, plays the lead opposite Marin Mazzie, a white actress. In the
multiracial cast of Superstar, a black actor plays Peter.
The wicked stage, then, can provide the path to spiritual
experience, if not holiness, with a fair share of spiritual yearning and ritual
woven into the writing and performing. Perhaps in some new incarnation, the
song might be Life Upon the Sacred Stage.
Retta Blaney, an arts and religion writer in New York, is the
founder of Broadway Blessing, an interfaith service held every September to
bring the theater community together to ask Gods blessing on the new
season.
National Catholic Reporter, May 5,
2000
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