Sermon in the mount
by Cris Gross
When Sarah Ruhl was studying with Paula Vogel at Brown University, and adjusting her career path from poet to playwright, she started Passion Play. It took its title from the Christian tradition that annually brings theater to religion, and vice versa, in dramatic interpretations that tell of Jesus’ final days or in some versions the full Bible story of man from Genesis to Revelations. She began it at age 21, finished it at 31, and now nearly a decade later it makes its Orange County premiere at Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills.
About 800 years before Andrew Lloyd Webber made Jesus a Broadway baby, communities employed theater to mount God’s word in grass-roots productions, often performed in the weeks around Easter. Ruhl was interested in how lay people to theater and the church were affected by their temporary elevation to local celebrities and figures from The Bible. As annual events, there was also the challenge of keeping one’s role, or risking losing it to a pretender to the part.
The playwright takes us to separate productions in England, Germany, and America spanning 400 years. Each of these is an hour-long act, which is probably more time than is required, but credit director Trevor Biship’s 11-member cast with keeping this second production in Chance’s second home engaging throughout. Ruhl’s poetic strengths are evident. Her writing lifts these villagers and country folk into literary characters, and their stories verge on mythic. She does not create linear narrative but sweeps her way through history with a constant sense of inquiry into how faith imposes on ordinary people in and out of the pageant.
The rehearsals for the English mounting represent one of the final stagings in 1575, the year Elizabeth I banned all productions in her move to end the power of the Catholic Church. A frightening Queen Elizabeth (Karen Webster) appear, the manifestation of the real treat she represents. On Fred Kinney’s large, deceptively simple set, the earnest rehearsals progress as we meet the craftsmen and laborers who will soon transform into Biblical figures.
Next its Bavaria in 1934, where Oberamergau became the epicenter of the process. Secular power is now represented by Chancelor Hitler, who is a big supporter of the Passion Play, as it seems to put Jews in a bad light, and (Webster again) he makes a famous appearance in the audience that same year as his Nazi-led government hosted the Olympics. Bishop, Kinney and Lighting Designer Brandon Baruch reveal more wonders in their production, as cast members help build the railroad that will lead to the camps.
For the third act we move to America, and the town of Spearfish, South Dakota, beginning in 1969 as the Vietnam War is raging. One actor answers the call of duty, joining up and losing his role in the re-enactment. This creaties a rift with those who stayed behind. We move ahead to 1984 (coincidentally L.A.’s Olympic year), when President Reagan (Webster) attends as part of his re-election campaigning.
In each act, Ben Moroski plays the charismatic Messiah, called simply John the Fisherman, and lets us feel both the pride and pressure associated with the part. Casey Long is his offstage friend and onstage rival, Pontius the Fishgutter, until the third act when he is off to Vietnam. Camryn Zelinger and Katelyn Schiller provide rich portraits of the near-interchangeable Mary 1 and Mary 2, whose offstage lives are greately impacted by their roles as Magdalene and the Virgin Mother. Other noteworthy performers are Alex Bueno as an sympathetic Village Idiot who will also be known as Violet, but her old disability will target her for the railway to the camps. Karen O’Hanlon gets the most variety, as a Monk in England, a British reporter in Germany, and a small but distinct appearance in the South Dakota section. Robert Foran and Jackson Tobiska as two directors both make strong showings, with Tobiska an appreciably well-rounded Nazi officer.
Credit Biship, and the design team, which also includes costumer Sara Ryung Clement, sound designer Jeff Polunas, and puppet makers Christopher Scott Murillo and Brittany Blouch with creating a dramatic environment in the vast rectangular room. It is a great achievement for the company to take on the demanding, wide-ranging world of this play and give it such coherence and appeal.
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