Re-Staging
During the 2015 production, we were invited by Whitworth University to restage it for the following Spring. Karin Heller, PhD., D.Div., Dr. theol. habil., Professor of Theology at Whitworth University across town was in the Fall 2015 audience, and immediately as the performance ended - before we even moved into our post show discussion - she was asking me to bring it to Whitworth in the Spring. Now that is a tall order in many ways: to take a fully developed stage production and five months later present it for a single performance in another location. But because the first production was a tour, we had a travel size medallion and I knew that having a reunion of sorts with the cast five months later would be a gift for us all. I did not realized what a gift it would actually be.
So I communicated with the cast, and all but one could commit to the Spring as she was already committed to studying abroad in Paris. My delightful stage manager/assistant director stepped forward willing to play the part. As the week of the performance came closer, I was wondering what I had committed to. My students had lived full busy lives since they last spoke those words. I worried I had just created another obligation for them rather than an opportunity. We were to perform on a Sunday, and the Thursday before we got together for our first rehearsal. As they began, it was fun to see their uncertainty turn to incredulousness that they still remembered so much.
Sunday came; I cracked the whip to figure out spacing on this new stage and help them run through a few rough spots. We had a moment to circle up…..and I said:
As we stand here together once more I just want to thank you for being here today and being in the show last fall. As I get older I realize that four years of the undergraduate experience goes so fast. I have had other students that I cared so much about and in four years they graduate and are gone from my life. But you will live on for me in my heart because of this production and also in the book I am writing about this production. So please just savor this moment and these words.
Dancing at the 2016 revival performance. Photo courtesy of Caley Edwards
Conclusion of the 2016 revival. Photo courtesy of Caley Edwards
Laying down Jesus’ body at the 2016 revival. Photo courtesy of Caley Edward
The performance went really well. Yes, it was a ‘tight performance’ and the audience wouldn’t have been able to tell we restaged it so quickly, but more importantly, I heard new maturity in the way they said those lines! Much of this cast were Freshmen, and they had matured from that first month of school to three quarters through the year, but I also believe living with these words gave them a new maturity and strength. At the post show discussion, my impression was given voice as one student, Elise, talked about how being a Freshman was hard, but playing the role of Deborah helped her be strong: “It made me believe I can do this,” she said as she gestured like Deborah. It was true! I had bumped into her on campus and when I did, she seemed a young student finding her way. But when she played Deborah on that stage she was a Judge and led her people in peace and in war. I can’t help but hope that in those moments in her life that she feels uncertain and unsure of herself, that she can draw on the strength she embodied by playing Deborah.
My stage manager/assistant director spoke of how she committed to the project because it sounded interesting, but that it wasn’t until the read-through that she realized how powerful the production had the potential to be. She shared what a gift it was to then get to perform for this special showing because she wasn’t looking at it from the outside directing and calling lighting cues but was now embodying the words. “Now to say the words, made me think of my mom and how hard it was to let me go to college. I was getting choked up because I know she calls and tries to be all cool, but she is really worried about me and loves me.”
My hope is that this empowerment of the performers also extends to the audience, and I have reason to believe that it does. As we were preparing to restage the show, a member of the Whitworth community reached out to me asking if the show would be appropriate to bring her 10-year-old daughter to. After warning her about some of the violent and sexual themes in the show, she decided to bring her daughter along. She shared her response with me in an email after the performance:
"I asked [my daughter] what she thought and what stood out, prefacing it with, ‘There were probably a lot of new words that you maybe didn’t understand. I’d like to talk to you about that and figure them out together.’ Her words were, ‘You know Mom, I didn’t understand some things, but it made me realize how strong (we) are and I feel really proud to be a girl, like I really can do anything.’"
– Wendi Putzke, audience member 2016
It was also wonderful to have Linda Schearing with us for this performance. She joined us for the prayer at the beginning and then as she waited for the show to begin she wrote the following notes that she read at the post show discussion. She shared that one of the cast members had given her a note written on handmade paper. There was a visiting artist who demonstrated how new paper could be made from old clothes. The cast member loved that it was a way to make torn cloth, whole again which is a question in the script: Can torn cloth ever be made whole?
Dr. Schearing shared this gift and had this to say: