A History Lesson

Theatre in "our" (contemporary Western) world began in Europe in the tenth century.

Stop and think a moment what that means. A rural society. almost universally illiterate, in which books are non-existent in normal experience. (Among other things, the printing press hasn't been invented yet and a book is a rare treasure. Remember the role of the library, a few centuries of rapid development later, in The Name of the Rose.) Throughout Europe power is concentrated in the hands of local thugs who have managed to take possession of the land by force and/or trickery. The mass of our European ancestors are landless, powerless, and voiceless.

The thugs employ flunkies called knights to enforce their rule, and they control what little there is of communication (based on the remains of the system established by the vanished Empire to serve its military pretensions and its profit). The foot is our almost universal mode of transport, which means there are few of us who have seen much beyond the neighboring village or the next valley. There is only one place where we are allowed to gather and try to discover who we are.

In that place our ancestors in Europe practiced a once-forbidden ritual. They learned to sing together, they learned symbolic gesture and ritual dialogue. They learned about ritual costume and color relations. They learned the meaning of entrances and exits, they learned spatial relationships and ritual movement within that space. The very structure of the ritual taught them the basics of dramatic form, of climax and suspense and rhythm.

Once upon a time, in a pretty big village, there was a parish priest. Among his various duties there was one that he particularly enjoyed: every Sunday morning he had a Mass for the children of the parish. Being on about the same intellectual and emotional level (actually the kids had him beat on most counts), they managed to communicate well.

But one gray morning he awoke to a terrifying realization: "I don't have the energy to keep the kids entrained any more." He had long ago used up what slight traces of ideas there were bouncing around in his head, the kids had his jokes memorized; only his energy had saved him till now. He entered into mid-life crisis.

Then one day a miracle occurred: he had an idea. "I'll have the kids get up and form a picture of the Gospel every Sunday. They can imagine what it would look like in their own barrios. That way I can use the energy of their own imaginations and I won't have to work so hard myself."

At the other end of the village lived the director of a very-far-off-Broadway theatre. He had just closed his theatre's biggest hit he ever

and he was frustrated. Because it was still "his" theatre. It wasn't in deep enough touch with the real lives and aspirations of the mass of the villagers. He went to work in the garden.

It's impossible to change the villagers' routine, he mused.

He yanked at a root that didn't budge.

We've got to move into a routine that's already there.

He hacked at the ground around to loosen it.

What about the Mass?

He burrowed deeper.

We could do the readings in the Masses in all the barrios.

He pulled.

The actors could teach the villagers to do the readings in parts.

Dirt smeared his face as the root popped out.

Suddenly, in the tenth century, at the very moment when the ritual touched the most inexpressible heart of its mystery, "one of the brothers enters and goes to the place of the sepulchre." At the same time three others come in from another direction, "Haltingly, in the manner of seeking for something" until they "Come before the place of the sepulchre".

The writer of the manuscript seems to have paused a moment. A word of explanations is necessary: "These things are done in imitation of the angel seated on the tomb and the women coming with spices to anoint the body of Jesus." Then he wrote on:

When therefore the seated one will see the three approaching him,
wandering about as it were and seeking something,
let him begin to sing in a sweet and moderate voice:
Whom do you seek?
The three answer with one voice:
Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.
He to them:
He is not here;
he has risen as he said.
Go, announce that he has risen from the dead.

The celebration of the central event of world history became the decisive moment for the development of Occidental theatre. The idea catches on, other biblical events are "represented", the representations become independent of the ritual and then spill out of the building into the towm square where they meet up with the wandering troubadour and the jongleur, and soon the whole of Europe is theatrically literate and the theatre becomes "the people's spoken, dramatized newspaper" (Dario Fo).

Our ancestors had found a voice.

Several months passed. One day a stranger arrived in the village. He spent many hours talking with both the director of the very-far-off-Broadway theatre and the parish priest in their own language. After about three weeks he disappeared and was never seen in the village again. But the villagers found a strange manuscript he had left behind. They opened it careful and this is what it said:

THE MANUSCRIPT

Easter Sunday 1986

This has the ring of a "letter to the editor." Let it be a simple reflection of gratitude to the actors of teatro la fragua for their powerful Holy Week dramatization of the Passion according to St. John.

I suppose you could start with the sin of a North American, who with a first-world-formed sensitivity (read "condescension") entered the palm Sunday liturgy anticipating the dramatic rendition of the Passion, but expecting a rather roughed-up job, and wanting to protect the "inexperienced troupe" from Their mistakes and possible failure before the eyes of friends and neighbors who are the town of El Progreso.

Add to that the sin of a religious whose experience tells him of the difficulty of proclaiming the Passion well, and who carried doubts that especially this unpolished group of young people could be touched by, filled with, and proclaim the dramatic truth that is the Passion story.

Amid the raw energy of anticipation and excitement of the congregation which had just processed through town, I entered the parish church of El Progreso to celebrate the liturgy of Palm Sunday. The opening rites of the liturgy were all but lost in the din of energy created by the procession. May fears for the Passion were very real at this point.

The troupe entered the sanctuary and began, and my fears vanished as quickly as the untamed energy in the Church was stilled. The burden of my two sins immediately stood before me, convicted me, challenged me, and dissolved into the very proclamation of the Passion itself.

It was the most powerful proclamation of the Passion I have ever experienced.

There was no hesitation in any of the fragua actors. They knew who they were, what the passion had spoken to them, what they were now proclaiming in the strength and subtlety of their voices, their bodies, and their interactions.

What was it? Not so easy. What I'm most aware of in this moment is a tremendous excitement. Call it a joy, all it a sense of possibility, call it a hope. Call it simply a very powerful religious experience.

Call it conversion.

Images continue to re-emerge at surprising times during my days:

The face of the young man who through most of the Passion narrative was Jesus: it knew strength, it knew misunderstanding, it was confident, it was very sad. It spoke all of these and refused to pinned down and categorized. It continues to live in me.

The simple but profound technique in which the characters melted in and out of each other: The narrator melts into the crowd and emerges a moment later in another part of the sanctuary as Pilate while the narration is taken by another who will later become a face of Jesus on the cross and then by others who move in and out of positions and characters-- Jesus too melting into and emerging from the crowd-- in a way that did not allow me to rest on any character or assume that I was one specific person in the narrative.

I was the narrator telling it like it was, I was the crowd yelling it like it often is, I was the soldier selling it for what it isn't, I was the Pilate smelling in it what would be best for me....

The movements, the lines created by bodily positions never offered me the chance to slouch into a lethargic observance. I, together with the others in the Church, was called to he edge of my pew at times and pushed back at others. We were all engaged.

I remember a Pilate who was bothered, aggressive, fearful, angry, older, and younger.

I keep hearing Peter's second denial: a moment of response in which the "Si" so natural to a loving friend and excited disciple squeaks out unguarded but is immediately --strongly-- suffocated by the voice of fear: "I do not know the man!" That "yes" is within me, but it is so timid, so fragile.

I remember the scourging and crowning, the agony of which was communicated through rhythmic contortions of Jesus' body and timed clapping of the turba.

I was slapped into identification with both Jesus and those who beat him: "My sin is ever before me.

I haven't forgotten the rage and animation of the turbulent crowd: "Crucify him, ¡Crucifícalo!"

Such power, such security, such anonymity in a crowd.

Nor the crucifixion scenes in which the roles of Jesus is shared by all the actors. I was never allowed the comfort of isolating Jesus on the cross, of relegating that "role" to one Christ. Would I too be called upon to climb that same cross?

Their voices, their faces, their body movement, the use of the space, their convictions said everything and I heard it. I say it again: this was hopeful, and I was proud and grateful.

As I write it occurs to me that I really don't understand Spanish all that well. Yet I never "wondered what they were saying": The Passion lived for me, and has lived in me all this week, more powerfully than I can remember in my experience.

A final thought. El Progreso is not a large city. A week has passed, and during that week I have passed a number of those teatro la fragua players on the streets. Each time I have been gifted with a memory of the passion.

That has taken the passion into the heart of the town for me and has given in the flesh and blood of a particular people. Each time I have seen one of the actors I have been reminded of certain scenes, certain of my own responses. Mostly I am sparked by the sense of joy, the sense of pride, the sense of potential and hope that these young people have proclaimed.

I wonder what it has been like for their friends and neighbors who continue to pass them every day in the streets?

The villagers looked at each other when the reading of the manuscript concluded. the silence was finally interrupted by a shout: "Look, he left a note."

The villagers gathered around and grabbed at the paper. In their eagerness they might have destroyed it had not one rescued it and held it aloft, out of reach of the grabbing hands. When the villagers had calmed down, he lowered it and began to study its strange markings. Finally he revealed its contents:

"This is not very good so please don't use my name. But use it any way you want. Just as long as you don't try to turn it into one of those silly stories you tell the kids. You should be able to turn it into a lead-in to the pitch."

The villagers were puzzled. Finally a voice said;

"He means 'wind-up for the pitch'."

Quick glances at the speaker and then away. That must mean he's still playing games with the occupation army.

You can help the people of Progreso find a voice. Just mail your check to:

Jesuit Mission Bureau, Inc.
4511 West Pine Blvd.
St. Louis MO 63108
U.S.A.

All contributions are tax-deductible.