Note: This piece was written by my friend, Krystin Barnett. This article is a review of a play she saw at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut.
Jane Austen once wrote that play-acting is dangerous: all of those volatile, human emotions, let loose on a little stage. I’ve found that plays, while perhaps not dangerous in the modern sense, still have the ability to make the audience uncomfortable, and often don’t hesitate to do so. There’s something disconcerting about having scenes reflective of real life acted out by real people – well, actors – on that stage. Something disconcerting, but also intriguing.
The Yale Repertory Theatre’s new season is just beginning, and first on the line-up is Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play. As I want to assimilate to the cultural center of New Haven, I buy a ticket in advance, at the old-fashioned box office at the corner of York and Chapel streets.
“Okay, you’ll be in seat….7J. And it’s just the one ticket, then?” The lady behind the glass window asks me, peering imploringly through her glasses.
“Yes, thanks, just the one.” I just moved here, I want to add, in my own superficial defense, I haven’t exactly had the chance to find someone to fill seat 7K. But I just smile, hand over my $25, and leave with my one ticket, mentally noting Passion Play, Saturday, 7pm.
At 6:45 on Saturday I find my way to the University Theatre, bowing my head from the rain. The theatre is small, dimly lit, with an upper balcony overlooking the rounded stage. My seat is practically front and center, so I have an unobstructed view of the almost empty stage, decorated so far only with inexplicable, large wooden boxes. There is a wooden platform in the center of the set. As mostly older couples settle in their seats around me, I flip through the playbill. I notice how different it is from those handed out at other theatres, namely those of my undergraduate college’s theatre department. Less attention is paid to the actors than to the history of the theatre and, I realize with pleasure, the playwright. Sarah Ruhl is given a large, color headshot with a two page biography; she looks young for having such success. She had begun writing Passion Play about twelve years ago, after reading a short-story taking place in Oberammergau, Bavaria, which also became a setting in her play. Passion plays are, by definition, dramatic, theatrical representations of the life and death of Christ. Ruhl, in creating the production, took this concept and transcended it over three different time periods throughout history: 16th century Elizabethan England, 20th century Bavaria, and 1984 South Dakota. Passion Play not only encompasses the preservation of passion plays over centuries, but links the fates of the actors and townspeople caught up in the drama of putting on the show. In a broader scope, Ruhl aims to raise the questions surrounding the separation of church and state, something, she believes, has diminished in the decades since our Founding Fathers hoped to establish a united country. One thing in particular Ruhl says in her biography stands out: “To my mind, devotion is like a quality of light – how is it possible to legislate the quality of light? It would be like legislating the invisible moments that happen in a theatre.”
The hum of fifty conversations filling the small theatre suddenly dies; the lights flicker, and lively string music effectively kills any remaining non-scripted dialogue. The show’s begun.
For the first act, we’re in 1575 England, witnessing the townspeople’s preparation for the upcoming play, which is threatened to be shut down by Queen Elizabeth, who is seeking to control religious representation. A huge crucifix, complete with a handsome actor playing a handsome actor playing Jesus Christ, is rolled on and off the set. Besides that, the scene doesn’t change much, but through the truly captivating performances and dialogue, we’re taken through a number of places in the medieval town: from the Church, we’re the chorus director tries in vain to rid his choir of the “village idiot,” to the bedroom of the promiscuous young actress playing the Virgin Mary, to the butcher shop where the town’s Judas works, cleaning and filleting fish. Cleverly lightened with religious and political jokes that cross the boundaries of history, the stage is set for the upcoming second and third acts, during which we’re promised to be taken to Hitler’s Germany and Reagan’s America.
The running time for the show is 3.5 hours, with two fifteen minute intermissions between acts. I thought I’d be squirming in my seat after two hours, but I don’t even check my watch once. I do notice, however, that two of the older couples sitting in my vicinity don’t come back after the second act, which, as it happens, includes full-frontal male nudity. Besides this – ahem – contentious scene, the second act is stranger and more erratic than the first. Oberammergau, Bavaria: we’re allowed backstage of the 1934 theatre house as Hitler himself (played powerfully by a talented female equity actress, who also later plays Reagan), visits the set. Hitler’s presence silences the actors, who had been rehearsing, and they cower on the stage, as though waiting for a whip to lash their backs. After a drawn-out speech, Hitler turns to the audience with a hint of a smirk.
“How I love public speaking,” the actress says in her deep German voice, purring over the o in “love.” The audience chuckles collectively, and the rehearsal of the Oberammergau passion play continues, leading into the second intermission.
A brief history in the playbill tells us that Hitler used to practice his crowd raising gestures prior to his speeches, and is said to have once considered himself a great actor.
The third act moves swiftly, though by the clock is the longest. It covers not only 1969 but also 1984 South Dakota, USA. A small town is rehearsing once again, only this time Judas is a Vietnam soldier, set to leave for war in a few days time. His wife, playing Mary, learns this and tries to prepare, while Judas’s younger brother, playing Jesus, enjoys life in the Seventies. Years later, the soldier returns, shell-shocked and a stranger in the country he fought for. The town’s Passion play has ended, and Judas learns that he has been betrayed by both Jesus and Mary in his absence. The third act, given its setting and dialogue, is more relatable than the previous two and arguably the most powerful. The characters manage to find resolution through their various forms of faith, in each other, and the bonds developed in their town theatres.
The lights slowly spread over the audience, and the cast comes to the front of the stage to grasp hands and bow. When the lead actors take the center spot, we lift ourselves (creakily) from our seats to give a standing ovation. I look over at the middle-aged couple sitting next to me, clapping ardently and grinning. Then the woman leans to the right into her companion’s ear and says loudly over the applause,
“I wish Sarah Ruhl would come out here and take a bow – the writing was fantastic, huh?”
I found myself smiling; I couldn’t agree more with 7K
