In IB Theatre, a great deal of time is devoted to discussing the personal, cultural, and societal context of artistic expression. Students are asked to explore their own context, giving them insight in to how their life experience might inform and inspire their creativity. Social, political, and cultural context can provide rich subtext for original works and breathe new life into existing works. Never was this so evident than in my most recent directorial endeavor with GODSPELL at Santa Margarita Catholic High School.
Initially, I found GODSPELL, a musical by Stephen Schwartz and John -Michael Tebelak, based on the Gospel of St. Matthew to be a challenging show. The first act, which according to Schwartz, should focus on developing community and relationship among the cast members through the telling of Parables, relies on various story-telling devices and clownish humor. The second act follows more closely the Passion of Jesus from the Last Supper through His Crucifixion. The transitions between the parables and songs and the style of storytelling are left entirely up to the director. While this allows for a great deal of creative license, it makes for a highly improvisational and unstructured rehearsal process.
Whenever I choose a play or musical, I try to consider the space in which the show is to be performed. In this case, the venue was a sprung tent-like structure called "The Dome." The dome is an unconventional space which lends itself to environmental theatre. As I began to consider GODSPELL, the dome seemed to provide the freedom in staging that I felt the show required.
Given the nature of educational theatre, I also seek to give as many students an opportunity to perform as possible. GODSPELL is written for a cast of ten performers. Adapting the script for nearly forty performers was a daunting task. Without any character names, the casting of each parable, song, and role was based entirely on the personalities and qualities of the individual ensemble members. Each ensemble member also took on the role of a homeless person in the encampment and created their own back story. Those characters then took on roles within the parables adding to the "story within a story" casting complexity.
In the early conceptual phase, my intention was to set the show in a refugee camp. That initial concept morphed into setting the show in a motel and adjacent parking lot where "homeless" families are housed close to Disneyland. Ultimately, it was the set design created by one of my students that inspired us to set the show right in our own back yard in a fictitious homeless encampment under a freeway overpass near Angel Stadium. The setting of an actual homeless encampment along the Santa Ana Riverbed had been the subject of frequent news stories thus our setting for GODSPELL resonated deeply with the cast, crew and audience.
I had been inspired by a faculty service project I had participated in at Santa Margarita during which the faculty filled back packs with essential items for homeless members of the community. I envisioned a similar service project involving audience members filling backpacks as they entered the dome before GODSPELL. Initially, I thought that we would create a human assembly line and pass the backpacks from the audience members to the stage. However, in the end, we decided to have the audience members actually bring the backpacks down to the stage on their way out to intermission. In the second act, I knew I wanted to build a mound of back packs to create Golgotha for the Crucifixion scene. This idea remained in tact and was a powerful image. Ultimately, I chose to have the cast wear the backpacks as they processed out singing "Long Live God and Beautiful City." It was a highly symbolic and moving visual metaphor for the Resurrection.
The context of homelessness provided a powerful focus for the show and shed new light on the parables and the Gospel message of Jesus. Interwoven throughout the show were projections that juxtaposed images of homelessness with the Beatitudes, the parable of the Sheep and Goats, and a soup kitchen during the song, "Beautiful City."
The initial directorial challenges I faced began to melt away as it became clear that the context of the show's setting was providing potent meaning and relevance.
I was reminded again of how important it is to be patient with the process. GODSPELL also reinforced my belief that if the process has integrity, the product will have integrity. By all accounts, GODSPELL touched the hearts of the audience. Ultimately, 650 backpacks were delivered to the Illumination Foundation to be distributed to members of the homeless community. A total of $3000 was raised from ticket sales and donations for first and last month's rent for a homeless family.
The process of producing and directing GODSPELL with a group of committed, creative, and passionate student designers and performers made this experience one of the most satisfying of my educational theatre career. The transformative power of Theatre on Purpose was on full display and continues to move in the hearts of those touched by the show.
