And then a funny thing happened while I was at work….
Let me start from the beginning; what a proper place to
start. In 1991, I was out adventuring with a handful of my fellow seminary
students in South America. We stumbled across a Jewish settlement in the
mountains near Cordoba, Argentina. The little town looked like a series of
gingerbread houses and coo coo clocks. I learned that the community was full of
Jewish refugees who fled Europe during the War and resettled in Argentina,
which is why the settlement so strongly resembled Germany.
One particular thing deeply impacted me while I was touring
the town square. There was a large tree with a rope hanging from its limbs. I
asked them when they were going to repair the tire swing so the kids could have
a place to play. The man shook his finger and said, “Not a toy. This was where
they hung the Nazi who was hiding amongst us.” Several years before we got
there, the villagers discovered that a former Nazi was hiding in their town,
and they collected him and summarily hung him from that very tree. They left
the rope as a reminder. And boy, do I remember.
Many years later, I wrote a play about a Holocaust survivor
who lost his wife and children to the Nazis; a man who was determined to find
the men responsible for their deaths and kill them. He tracks them down at a
bank and takes the entire group hostage, fully intending on publically executing
these murderers as an act of justice. Only, nothing goes according to plan.
Rose and Mr. Cato, along with the bank president, Miss Kincaid, don’t cooperate
with him.
The catalyst for change is Rose. Her presence and her story
so profoundly impact the gunman, that he is conflicted to the point of
hesitation.
And now I must introduce Jesus Quintero, the Director.
Jesus is a man of vision, and his mind works like a van Gogh
painting. When I presented him the script, he saw an opportunity to do something
significant. He stuffed the entire story into a cocoon and allowed the
chrysalis process to transform that sleepy caterpillar into a work of art. What emerged was an incredible interpretation
of my story, but with amazing theatrical elements that are almost impossible to
describe.
For many months, I attended every rehearsal and offered
rewrites and updates to the script, and then it happened. My work got in the
way, and I was no longer able to attend the sessions. I could sense that
something was going on with the play. Jesus was slyly leaving me hints that he
was now interpreting the story. Now, I must say, he asked me for permission to
take liberties with the script. I’m not fragile, and I immediately granted him
discretion to take the story in any direction he chose. And in the few weeks where I missed
rehearsals, he took my script and “van Goghed” it. While I was disappointed
that I was not able to participate, I think my absence was necessary for his
creativity to be unfettered.
 |
| Keely Gray is Death |
The first thing I noticed, he added a new character to the
script: Death.
I know, right? DEATH! But it was brilliant! And his new
character was smug and manipulative. And enchanting. And tempting. And I loved
it.
Another thing to note is that Jesus chose to be quite unconventional
in another regard: he wanted to direct the play from the stage while it was
happening. It sounds like chaos, and in a way it is, but it’s controlled chaos.
And it works.
So, Jesus chose to make the play a very intimate experience,
and deliberately selected a venue where they could interact with the audience
and actually make them unwitting participants (I’ll explain that in a few
minutes…). Rather than working from an elevated stage, he found Monarch
Mountain Coffee and transformed that small café into an interactive theatre.
The audience sits at their tables, and the play is performed all around them,
from one end of the room to the other, and it goes back and forth for the
entire performance. There is no perfect place to sit. At some point, your chair
will be right in the middle of the action, and it happens without warning.
So, having Death as a character creates an unusual macabre
atmosphere. But it’s not depressing. Rather, it’s quite intriguing. And I
really wish I’d thought of it myself. How can you tell a story about the
Holocaust without death? And once the audience figures out that the characters
are dancing with Death, then the play begins to make sense. And the flashback
sequences bring order from chaos. And the soliloquies from the characters are
so powerful that you will be thinking about them long after the play ends.
Perhaps for the rest of your life.
Okay, remember the audience participation? Well… Jesus and I
worked out an idea where the play would have two possible endings: mercy or
justice. Should the gunman execute the murderous Nazi, or should he grant mercy
and allow him to live? Well, you, Mr. Audience Member, get to decide just that.
You get to cast a vote and see whatever ending receives the popular vote. I
know, right? And as soon as you see the ending you voted for, you want to see
the alternate, but that won’t happen. You’ll be left wondering.
So, after I saw the performance and experienced the
transformation of my story for the first time, many, many people approached me
and asked if this was my original vision. Of course, I have to say, “no”. It’s
not at all what I envisioned when I wrote it. But, it’s exactly the same story.
And it’s told through dance, song, dialog, and acting. And it’s uncomfortable.
There are some very painful moments that I won’t discuss. You have to
experience it. Having said that, this story is a celebration of life, and is
about the sanctity of life. And I’m so proud to be part of it. I wish I could
take full credit, but I wouldn’t dare. Jesus and I worked together to make
something that neither of us could do on our own. And from chaos comes art.
Find out more about American Lab Theatre at:
http://www.americanlabtheatre.comFind out more about American Lab Theatre at:
 |
| Keely Gray, Cory Repass, Jeremiah Guidos, Haley Nicholson, and Mason Jones are our cast of characters. Alex Cope and Savannah Stierle work behind the scenes |
