After all, from the time of the Roman Empire's fall until the Renaissance, theater survived in large part due to the Catholic Church... their monasteries kept safe ancient texts for folks like Shakespeare to discover later, and in the meantime, they kept the theatrical tradition alive with morality plays, mystery cycles and Passion Plays. That's not to say the Church didn't do its darndest to stamp out secular theater - for a thousand years, it succeeded at just that - but nonetheless, you'd think in this incredibly polarized world we live in, there'd be some plays about religion. Where's The Passion of the Christ: Live!?

Perhaps that's a bit much, but you know what I mean in the larger sense, and I wish I could answer the question - I suppose Tom Delay would say it's because the theater is populated by godless liberals (codewords for "homosexuals", by the by). Godless, liberal or otherwise, we all certainly have our struggles with faith, and so do our audiences. And as director Marion McClinton (one of August Wilson's greatest interpreters) said to me recently, "especially in this time, where everything seems to be pushing you in the opposite direction… people need to go to theater for the same reason they go to church… they come to experience something with other people that tells them they’re alive, and being human has value."

So why not more plays from a Christian point of view? Or Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu?

There's certainly a huge hunger for addressing these questions in Next's audience. About 100 folks attended our recent Saturday Salon, "Why Be Good? Religious Imperatives and the Afterlife", which contextualized MISS WITHERSPOON in terms of the religious traditions in the play. Academics from Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim backgrounds spoke about afterlife beliefs, and all of us in the audience wished the 90-minute panel could have gone on for about six more weeks!

American Theatre Magazine has taken up the question of why there aren't more Christian-based theaters (there is only one such company I know of in Chicago, the young Provision Theater Company, which produces work from a spiritual and often Christian point of view). The article interviews practitioners around the country who work in the theatrical fields of the Lord, but comes up short in answering the question.

So, as an Artistic Director trying to respond to issues of interest in our community, I'm looking at faith-based plays. Two standouts are under heavy consideration for 2007-08: Keith Bunin's beautiful play about faith, family, and coping with loss, The Busy World is Hushed, and Mike Leigh's provocative work 2000 Years. The former tells the story of an Episcopalian Minister, her drifter son, and the young man she hires to help her write her book about a new-found Gnostic Gospel. It is essentially a four-pointed play about love and loss (love between mothers and sons, between husbands and wives, between men, and between sons and absent fathers), but told through the Minister's faith and her son's resistance to it (you can read the New York Times review of its world premiere earlier this season).


The Busy World is Hushed at Playwrights Horizons

The latter, from the noted filmmaker who wrote Secrets and Lies among others, is what he calls his "Jewish play". A huge hit in Britain, it tells the story of an extremely secular family in which the parents go berserk when their son becomes extremely religious. I'm not sure this one will play well here - this kind of secularism is unusual in this country - but it's a poignant and provocative piece. Read a little about it on the National Theatre website; it's not yet been seen in the States.

A third entry into our season-planning process is a crazy idea I've got to investigate the recent trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, in which a number of parents sued the school board over issues surrounding evolution and Intelligent Design. You may remember Pat Robertson warning the citizens (after they voted in a Democratic school board) that they shouldn't "turn to God" if there's ever a disaster there, because they'd rejected Him. This was a year and a half ago or so, and the evolution side won handily... I've read some of the transcripts (there are a few thousand pages), and there's not a tremendous amount of drama there. But the drama that IS there lies in questions not mentioned in court: why did these members of the school board feel so threatened? What is this rising tide of secularism they see (when all I see is the rising tide of religion), and why do they fear it so much?

Wouldn't it be fascinating to interview those folks and find out why Of Pandas and People was worth such an upheaval in their lives and in their community? Do the good people of Dover speak to each other anymore?

I'd love to hear your thoughts about plays and faith, and in the meantime, I'm heading back to the Christmas carols... Best wishes from all of us at Next for a joyous holiday season.

Labels: Busy World is Hushed, Religion