Having faith in theatre
I lived my childhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland during a Civil War ostensibly fought by Catholics against Protestants (and visa versa). We had bomb drills in school; I was body-searched when entering department stores; and I waited each night for my father to come home safe.
Then, my parents moved our family to Langley – buckle of BC’s Bible Belt. At 14, I was banished from our local Baptist church’s youth group for asking two deliberately provocative questions: 1) if Jews were the chosen people, why did God change his mind? and 2) if God believes ultimately in love, what is wrong with homosexual love?
Since then, I’ve worked in an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, advocated for free speech and struggled to understand Faith – its appeal and its pitfalls.
Some people have faith in art, some in prayer, others in the marketplace. A successful Christian theatre, I imagined, must believe in all three.
Vancouver’s "Pacific Theatre":http://www.pacifictheatre.org/ was founded in 1984 by a group of actors who, according to their website, “wanted to establish a non-propagandist professional theatre where they would be free to explore work having particular meaning to them as Christians.” Twenty-five years later, the company occupies a 126-seat theatre, has grown its annual production budget from approximately $30,000 to about $500,000, garnered 77 Jessie Richardson Award nominations over 14 seasons, and received 11 Jessies – including one for Outstanding Production for *Grace* in 2007.
The company has consistently mounted and co-produced challenging – often risky – plays. In 2008, for example, they presented the Canadian premiere of Steven Fechter’s *The Woodsman* (about paedophilia) and the Western Canada premiere of Emil Sher’s *Mourning Dove* (about euthanasia). In other words, PT has definitively established its guts and artistic merit, and distanced itself from typical church-basement theatre.
And yet, PT’s mission statement still can generate a frisson of discomfort: “Pacific Theatre exists to serve Christ in our community by creating excellent theatre with artistic, spiritual, relational and financial integrity.”
In preparing this feature, I watched and listened to the reaction of friends and colleagues to this sentence. Some jumped immediately to the Crusades. Others discussed the contemporary ideology and actions of the Evangelical right in the United States. Then, there was the cross-section who recommended that I go to see the new film adaptation of Doubt and reminded me that The Arts Club Theatre presented the Canadian premiere of this play in Fall 2008. My own response was a flicker of fear quickly swallowed by stubbornness. Too many youthful sermons full of fire and brimstone, and little compassion, I guess.
So, then, just for kicks, I replaced the world ‘Christ’ with first ‘Buddha’, then ‘Krishna’, then ‘women’, then ‘first nations’, then – well, many other abstract and concrete nouns. And, what do you know? The statement was no longer provocative to me.
Interesting.
And that’s when I picked up the phone and booked an interview with PT’s artistic director Ron Reed and out-going director of operations and actor Dan Amos.
[img_assist|nid=643|title=Ron Reed (right) with Kerry van der Griend in Mourning Dove; photo by Damon Calderwood|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=358|height=288]Lanky, in his early 50s, wearing a New York Mets ballcap, Reed pulls up a chair in the quiet theatre. The stage – one wall features a workshop, the other a dollhouse Noah’s arc – is set for that night’s performance of Mourning Dove, in which Reed plays mentally challenged savant Keith Martel. Music played by the members of the South Granville Seniors Centre, who share the building and are quite possibly dancing in the room next door, filters through the wall.
Subtle, self-deprecating, prone to concise confessions, Reed chats first about the satisfactions of writing and the “social-physical parts of yourself” that acting exercises. And, when I ask a direct question about the meaning of ‘non-propagandist’ theatre, Reed consents graciously to plumb the “completely baffling” context of Christian theatre and PT’s place in that milieu.
“I’ve always said,” Reed notes, “that Christian is a really muscular noun but it’s a terrible adjective. Attach it to anything and it’s problematic. And calling what we do Christian theatre seems to imply that everything has to have a message, has to tow some kind of line, which isn’t my experience of Christian faith at all.”
Later, Reed acknowledges, “Certainly we’ve tackled plays that have certain ethical problems. But our theatre isn’t an ethics or morality class.”
And, following this statement, Reed falls into a discussion of Mourning Dove. He draws a parallel between his faith and his art. In doing so, he demonstrates an integrity between belief and action. *Mourning Dove* is not about Christian morality, rather “it is about a man and wife who face the reality that their daughter is in constant pain.”
In fact, Pacific Theatre’s birth and evolution were marked by a desire to eschew simple answers and stereotypes. As Reed notes, the mandates of most artistic companies’ develop out of their work or as a way for groups who are underrepresented to express themselves.
“I suppose that in the early days, there was a bit of a sense that the only Christian characters – or religious characters – you would see in a play would be either caricatures or monsters – or both… [And yet], I would come upon stories that other theatres weren’t going to tackle that were central to my life, to many people’s lives.”
So, after receiving an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, Reed returned to Vancouver and with some colleagues founded PT. Their inspiration was San Diego’s "Lamb’s Players Theatre":http://www.lambsplayers.org/, which (according to that company’s website): “probes and questions the values and choices of contemporary culture; celebrates the joys, strengths and diverse traditions of family and community; explores the spiritual dimension of life; [and] champions the moral imagination..”
For the first decade, PT rented the studio space in the Richmond Gateway Theatre for mainstage productions – many of which were original commissions. The first commission was a play by Seattle playwright Jennifer Morrison (now Morrison Hendrix) that Reed paid $100 for at the Cheshire Cheese Inn in Kerrisdale.
PT also toured schools in the province with *The Dragon’s Project*, a play about substance abuse. More than 160,000 school children and adults saw the play over the course of five years.
But it wasn’t until 1994, when PT took up residence in the newly renovated Holy Trinity Church (at 12th and Hemlock), that the company became an established presence in Vancouver’s theatrical scene. And what might come as a bit of a surprise is that Reed turned down the offer of space twice before finally accepting.
At the time, he was concerned that the company, already on the periphery, would come to be seen as a “church drama group” and that – after a decade of choosing their work independently, which (Reed notes) is one benefit to receiving no grants – restrictions might be placed on the content of productions.
So, “as soon as they were courting us,” Reed says, “we made it clear… The plays won’t tow the line theologically, necessarily.
“We said that [a play] could have swearing, it could have nudity, it could be heresy. Theatre’s asking questions. It’s not laying out viewpoints.”
And over the course of conversations and negotiations, the relationship evolved into “totally a hands-off thing. Just like the seniors centre operates here. The church doesn’t interfere [by saying] ‘no, you can’t program that.’”
As a way to illustrate the nature of theatre that PT finds compelling, Reed references a play he wrote called *Refuge of Lies* (and which ran, most recently, off-Broadway in September 2008). It was based on the story of Jacob Luitjens, who was accused of being a Nazi collaborator in Holland during World War II and whose extradition was opposed by a Fraser Valley pacifist Mennonite church.
Reed explains how suddenly after reading the newspaper that while he had “this thirst for justice, this compassion for the people who were slaughtered in World War II but on the other hand, I’ve got this bone-deep commitment to mercy, forgiveness… I didn’t even think of writing a play when I knew what I thought. But as soon as I didn’t know, there was a play.”
Dan Amos - in his mid-20s, earnest, intelligent and PT’s outgoing director of operations - makes the point even more forcefully. “If it isn’t, it should be a misconception that Christian theatre is safe, family entertainment. It can be that, but generally speaking, our goal is almost the opposite of that. It’s to be vulnerable, to ask tough questions.
“I think people rarely come to the truth by being told. I think people come to the truth by evaluating their experience, by going through things. That’s a play experience, going through something. And maybe then having a much closer grasp on a particular truth or,” he laughs, “maybe having a much looser grasp on what you believed was the truth.”
And as to the effect of a play that presents tough questions?
“[It] causes me to ask,” Amos speaks carefully, “to talk to others, to pray maybe, to work it out.”
That’s when I smile and acknowledge that I followed just such a process after seeing PT’s production of "Mourning Dove":http://plankmagazine.com/review/theatre/mourning-dove-noah-and-compassio....
And I’m still asking questions.
Pacific Theatre's 2008/9 Season continues. Find more information by making a pilgrimage "here":http://www.pacifictheatre.org/.