Three atheists and a believer walked into a theater...No, this is not a beginning of a joke, this is the beginning of Soup Troupe's production of Agnes of God by John Pielmeier. Agnes of God is a complex play with many themes: motherhood, mental illness, knowledge. But at the heart of it all is the ubiquitous question of faith. The play is populated by characters who have faith and who have lost it and who are desperately searching for it. And that is what initially drew me to it - its stark, visceral and honest look at the nature of faith. |
And therein lies the directorial challenge of the play: How do you communicate what faith is like to someone who doesn't know it?
Of course, actors are often called upon to express feelings and thoughts that may not be familiar to them. But in most cases one can imagine what something would feel like or find an approximation for an emotion or situation. Not so for things like love or faith. If you'd never loved anyone, and I use "love" in its broadest sense, not just romantic love, it becomes that much more difficult to find an expressive way to portray it on stage that doesn't look forced or stilted.
And so we struggled with finding ways to communicate what faith feels like and express what it looks like. And I invite you to come to the show and judge for yourself whether we have succeeded. But the experience made me reflect on the nature of stage craft and believing. For, I think, theater itself is an act of faith.
When Stanislavsky in a burst of frustration uttered his immortal words "I don't believe!", he wasn't just commenting on a person's terrible acting, he was making a statement about the essence of stage craft. What we see on stage is not true in fact - the kings are just actors, the palaces are just cardboard sets and the sunshine is just a very powerful lamp - but it's true, or it should be true, on a deeper level. When we, strangers, gather in a dark theater and look out onto the bright stage, we hope to witness there some truth about the essence of humanity, of our own lives, of perpetual struggles and eternal joys.
This connection between theater and faith may be a revelation to no one but myself, but this I hold to be true: Theater has the power to make believers of us all.
-Anastasia
Of course, actors are often called upon to express feelings and thoughts that may not be familiar to them. But in most cases one can imagine what something would feel like or find an approximation for an emotion or situation. Not so for things like love or faith. If you'd never loved anyone, and I use "love" in its broadest sense, not just romantic love, it becomes that much more difficult to find an expressive way to portray it on stage that doesn't look forced or stilted.
And so we struggled with finding ways to communicate what faith feels like and express what it looks like. And I invite you to come to the show and judge for yourself whether we have succeeded. But the experience made me reflect on the nature of stage craft and believing. For, I think, theater itself is an act of faith.
When Stanislavsky in a burst of frustration uttered his immortal words "I don't believe!", he wasn't just commenting on a person's terrible acting, he was making a statement about the essence of stage craft. What we see on stage is not true in fact - the kings are just actors, the palaces are just cardboard sets and the sunshine is just a very powerful lamp - but it's true, or it should be true, on a deeper level. When we, strangers, gather in a dark theater and look out onto the bright stage, we hope to witness there some truth about the essence of humanity, of our own lives, of perpetual struggles and eternal joys.
This connection between theater and faith may be a revelation to no one but myself, but this I hold to be true: Theater has the power to make believers of us all.
-Anastasia