I feel as though I just need to write everything down so I don't forget it someday when I perhaps am able to sit down to write it more eloquently.
The events of the past month or two have been... interesting. Let me start by telling you about senior projects.
The IWU Comm department has a Media Communication major, Public Relations major, Journalism major, Communication Studies major, and a Theatre major that all fall under the umbrella of Communication. Every Communication major at IWU has to do a senior project in order to graduate. The student, perhaps with the help of a professor or adviser, comes up with an idea for his or her senior project and writes a proposal that is then approved by his or her adviser. Theatre majors do this too, but their process is actually slightly more complicated. Because Theatre majors most often choose to work in some capacity on a play within the IWU Theatre Guild season, soon-to-be senior Theatre majors have a hand in choosing the upcoming year's season of shows. Each show that the Theatre Guild presents as a part of their season has to go through the additional process of being approved by the Theatre Advisory Board. The TAB provides us with accountability and also with legitimacy. They help us decide whether or not the shows we do are suitable for our audiences and they also back us up on the decisions that we do make.
I am a junior, so last semester I began having to think about what I would do for my senior project. I read a few plays I hadn't read before, including A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, but still wasn't sure what I would do. I decided to propose Almost, Maine by John Cariani because it's currently one of my favorite plays. I had a vision for it and I decided I wanted to direct. Around the same time, in my Scriptwriting class (not too long after the semester started), we read a monodrama (a play with only one character) called My Name is Rachel Corrie by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. Some of my friends had talked about the possibility of doing a one-man or one-woman show for their senior project but I never thought it was for me. I like working in collaboration with people, and especially when acting. I REact. But there was something about this script. I dreamed about it. I thought about it in my spare time. It got under my skin. I talked about it with several people and eventually decided that I was going to try to do it as a senior project somehow.
I'll give you the synopsis the publishing company wrote. From Dramatists.com:
"On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old American, was crushed to death by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza as she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. MY NAME IS RACHEL CORRIE is a one-woman play composed from Rachel's own journals, letters and emails—creating a portrait of a messy, articulate, Salvador Dali–loving chain-smoker (with a passion for the music of Pat Benatar), who left her home and school in Olympia, Washington, to work as an activist in the heart of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the three sold-out London runs since its Royal Court premiere, the piece has been surrounded by both controversy and impassioned proponents, and has raised an unprecedented call to support political work and the difficult discourse it creates."
I decided not to try to present it as a part of our season. Instead, I emailed several professors and asked if they would be open to meet with me about an interdisciplinary project that I had in mind. Almost all the professors I emailed agreed to meet with me. I proposed the idea to them, and got almost unanimous support. All this was before Christmas break.
I began to obsess over it a little, I'll admit. But that's sort of how I am. I'm a little obsessive-compulsive. Once I start in on something, if I get excited or passionate about it, I'm dead set on it and it's one of the only things I can talk about. That started getting on some people's nerves last semester. Particularly the nerves of some seniors whose senior projects are happening this year and felt that I was making too big a deal about it too soon. There was some drama with that. I got burned. And I learned from it. I backed off.
When this semester started, I set up meetings with the professors that had agreed right away, and set up meetings with a couple of new ones. I wanted to make sure that the ones I had talked to were still on board and still willing to do this. They were. Almost all of the professors that I've introduced Rachel Corrie to have been willing and even excited about incorporating it into their classes. After summarizing the story for them and talking them through the implications of the play, I gave them copies of the script and let them all read it. Almost all immediately agreed to use the piece and asked how they could help. They saw merit in the story and in the kinds of discussions and learning outcomes that could result.
Figuring out what to do about a venue may be one of the biggest challenges I face in this project. I may not have access to the Black Box (which would be ideal for this particular script). If I don't, I need to figure out where these audiences will be able to see the play. I was advised to maybe try talking to a church or two and seeing if I could borrow some space to show the play. So, of course, my first instinct was to go to my own church and my own pastor. I knew I might meet some hesitancy from him going into it.
I met with my pastor before Christmas break. We were going to meet again a second time before Christmas break, but it didn't end up working out, so we met again after break. We met again the first week of school - Friday, January 13 at 3:00 p.m. The meeting, which I didn't anticipate lasting an hour, lasted for two. He told me that, firstly, I would not be able to use the church. At our first meeting I had summarized the story and explained what I would like to do with the play. He told me that he would approach the board with it and see if they thought it would be all right for me to use the church for my project. At this second meeting he told me that he had not even bothered to go to the board with it because he knew the answer to the question without approaching them with it. It was a flat out "no." Which was fine. I honestly wasn't counting on having the church space anyway because I knew it could go either way. I knew he might be in favor of it but I also knew that he might not like the idea of supporting it. He for sure did not like the idea of supporting it.
He told me that he was "disturbed" by the fact that I wanted to perform this play. He said something about trying to envision me up on a stage performing the script and he didn't like the image. When I asked what he had the biggest problem with in the script, his answer was language. He didn't necessarily like the politics represented in the story, but a story is a story and he wasn't immensely bothered by the story that the script told. He was, however, bothered by how it was told. The script has 23 instances of vulgar language. If it was a movie, it would be rated "R" by the MPAA because there is more than one f-word. Branching out from the script specifically, we moved on to have a discussion about art and faith--a discussion which, apparently, no one had ever had with him. Or at least not in the way that I discussed it with him. And definitely not a theatre art and faith discussion.
He questioned me about my boundaries as a Christian and as a performer. I explained how I determined them and he didn't sound satisfied. I think he walked away from the meeting feeling like I was a liberal, profane relativist who does not make choices characteristic of a pure and holy life.
Maybe I am.
I think he wanted me to show him exactly where I draw my lines and boundaries. I think he wanted to see me draw a black and white picture of the world and of my choices. I think he would have been content if I had said, "As a Christian performer, in order to live out my faith, I have decided that I will never say [insert list of certain vulgar words here], behave sexually, or reveal any part of my body immodestly on stage." I cannot say any of those things. I told him that my standards - my lines and boundaries - lie within the story I am helping to tell. Is this meaningful? Is this worth telling? Does this story need to be told? If it does, I will do what I need to in order to help tell it. He then said, "What happens when you go on stage? Do your morals just go out the window? What happens to God's Word? Do you just ignore it for the time you're on stage?" I tried my absolute hardest to explain in my words the difference between character and actor. Would I choose to turn down a role because of the things that I believe, the faith that I have chosen, and the person I try to emulate? Perhaps. But the lines I've drawn are not in places he's comfortable with.
I left the meeting a little frustrated, but hoping that I had somehow made some sense. That, perhaps, even though he disagreed with me, he could see where I was coming from.
I was wrong.
This past week, directly after flying in from New York City that day, I was at our Communication faculty showing of The Glass Menagerie. My professor pulled me aside and said he had something to talk to me about. He asked me what I felt I was obligated to do with regard to my senior project and I told him that I knew that 1) I was required to do a senior project and 2) that I had to do something relating to a theatrical venture of some kind. Then he proceeded to tell me this:
My pastor had gone to the Provost of the university voicing concern that I was being forced to do this project and claiming that, after having read the script, he was of the opinion that no student at the university should be required to read, much less produce the play.
Unfortunately I'd just come from a long weekend full of traveling and auditions, and I was so exhausted and drained that I started to cry right there without warning. I was angry and frustrated.
First of all, no one at any time has required me to produce Rachel Corrie. True, I am required to do a senior project in order to graduate. My senior project could consist of anything as long as it is approved by my content adviser. I chose Rachel Corrie. I read the script, it grabbed a hold of me, and I chose it because I want to tell the story. No one is forcing me into this in any way. I may have, at some point in our conversation, said the words "I HAVE to do this," but with an entirely different connotation. I WANT to do it. I wouldn't be happy with myself if I didn't do it. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the story needs to be told.
Secondly, I feel betrayed. I don't recall, in the course of our conversation, my pastor ever saying anything about going to the leadership of the school (certainly not the Provost). I believe I mentioned BOTH of my professors' names several times in the conversation as my mentors and my advisers in this process. I would have understood if he had gone to one of them initially and, potentially, after that, going higher up. But we had no warning.
Thirdly, it boggles my mind that he does not even think that the play should be read here. I don't understand that at all. I can understand the university not feeling comfortable producing it publicly here under the IWU "stamp," if you will. It's unfortunate, but I understand and I see that. That's why I decided to go to professors individually. But not even to read it? Because of language content? Really? Like I said. I don't understand. He must not know a whole lot of English and Writing majors. And apparently he only knows one (maybe two) Theatre majors.
We come back to the story. The story, as I see it (and apparently as eight different professors see it), has enough redemptive value to merit its reading/showing/viewing, regardless of the language. The story needs to be told and needs to be heard.
I am simply at a loss. Here I am, a junior in college, struggling daily with faith and art. It is a false dichotomy - of that much I have become certain. My God is big enough that I need not worry about choosing one or the other. They can and should go hand in hand. I have felt God's blessing on my decision to pursue a career in the theatre. I am in open daily conversation with him as well as with my friends and mentors about the tensions between my calling and my faith/faith community. This is not a subject I take lightly. I want to live in such a way that God smiles, but also in a way that maybe causes those around me to stop and think.
As a friend of mine put it (he told me not to use his words unless I own them for myself and, trust me, I do), I feel as though I'm out here on a limb and I turned around and watched someone I wanted to be able to trust saw it off behind me.
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