Mackenzie Draper - 2015 Audience

January 4, 2016 

In the history of humanity, women have often been pushed to the margins. Weaving Our Sisters’ Voices courageously told women’s stories from the Bible in compelling and fascinating ways. The stories I encountered in Weaving were viewed through a different and beautiful lens: one that focused directly on the women involved and indirectly on the men. This is such a different way of looking at the familiar biblical stories that I was almost taken aback when I first saw the play. However, in seeing the other side of these women’s stories, we get a fuller picture of grace, beauty, love, redemption, and wonder.

I was able to see Weaving twice – first with my mom, and the second time with a group of about ten girlfriends and one of my high school mentees. Both times I stayed for the talk-back afterward. While both performances were, obviously, the same in one sense – all the actors played the same characters, the same lines were spoken, the same dances and music were played – they were different, too. In one instance, one of the performers accidentally stubbed her toe on a rock and made a grimace that fit her line at the moment. The second time I attended, my friends found the Song of Solomon part humorous because of a previous message we had heard at our church. The first time I saw this part, I cried tears of wonder at the beauty of it.

In attending the talk-backs, I had a clearer picture of the different aspects of Weaving. When I went the second time, I asked about the absence of singing, music, or dancing in the Queen of Persia’s part. I picked up on it and wondered about the artistic statement it made. I believe it was in the first talk-back that I went to where I heard the costume designer talk about the choice of clothing for the performers. The dresses were made of woven cloth out of different kinds of fabrics to answer the question, “can torn cloth ever be made whole again?” I especially loved hearing the thoughts of the costume designer and the set designer, but especially the director of the play, because they had such insight into the aesthetic aspects of the play that – pardon my word choice – wove the play seamlessly into a beautiful story.