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The Mysteries is finally open! It seems a good time to reflect upon the journey that has lead me to this point in the process of rehearsing and exploring a 4-hour play.
A variety of emotions fill me as I consider the past ¼ year of my life… yes, 25% of a full year was spent exploring biblical stories and now, another 25% will be spent performing the play. So… for you mathematicians out there… that is 6 months of Bible! Wowzers. I didn’t get this much education about the bible in 5 years of Sunday school – all I learned in Sunday school is that the word “assume” means “to make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ “ Seriously… that is all I remember. Thanks for that lovely lesson.
Anyway… back to the subject at hand…
At the time I decided to do The Mysteries, I neither understood, cared about nor had any connection with the stories of the Bible. And, I didn’t have any interest in understanding the Bible or its stories better. The director of The Mysteries and his vision sold me on this production… and I knew when he spoke of it that this was a rare not-to-be-missed opportunity.
I am not a religious person, but I now understand how a guide like the Bible can be attractive to someone. This play has opened up my mind to the value of that way of life.
One of the main things that frustrate me about Christianity is that...
there are SO many “interpretations” of what it is really about! I used to believe that “a lesson is a lesson” – there is no wiggle room. But, really… how boring is that! I have been reminded through this project that we all will manipulate and interpret words. It is human nature. The Mysteries is simply another interpretation of those words. And since I’m clearly “turned on” by what we have created with The Mysteries, I must not really be frustrated by the vast amounts of interpretations of the Bible. After all… ours is yet another interpretation.
It is interesting to hear the reactions from certain audience members after seeing all 4 acts of this play. They range from “it is thrilling… you feel like you are literally inside the story” …. to… “I’m not used to looking at the Bible in this way”.
And that is the point of the exercise.
Personally, I am not used to looking at the Bible in ANY way whatsoever, but I gave myself over to it for 6 months. It has been a very positive thing for me. I would hope, therefore, that someone who has a very specific view of the Bible could at least give themselves over to another interpretation of it for 4 hours. Perhaps they might hear it for the first time (again). Doesn’t it seem dangerous to look at anything in only ONE way… especially something as potent as religion, which can shape a person’s life? Isn’t that how we have found ourselves in a polarized country run by a pope?
What The Mysteries Team has created over the past 3 months is another version of the lessons in the Bible – seen through the eyes of Michael Nehring (director). I will of course, try hard not to only look at the Bible from this perspective alone, but for the time being I have to say that I am much more excited by this interpretation than by my past Sunday school sessions.
In the future... many more will manipulate these stories and lessons into something that “turns them on” and I hope they do. If the reason one looks at the teachings of the Bible is for “truth”… shouldn’t they be open to the possibility that “truth” might be found somewhere unexpected? If they aren’t open to the danger that “truth” can come from somewhere else… they aren’t really searching for “truth”, they are settled in a “way of life”.
I see the Bible as fictional stories (regardless of whether a man named Jesus lived… I don’t think he walked on water, brought anyone back from the dead nor came back himself), but I can now find the value within the stories and for that I am proud of myself. Reaching out with an open mind is good. Hopefully... this play will also enable people on the opposite end of the spectrum to reach back toward me. Perhaps we will touch, even if for a brief moment.
It is in rigid interpretation where wonderful ideas become hurtful.
Comments
It makes me happy to read this blog. I have a deep love and respect for all religous mythology and iconography and I believe they spring from the best parts of human beings. They at least recognize that we are complicated beings with aspects to our lives and psyches that are quite mysterious and unexplainable using rational constructs. I find truth in the poetry of mythology.
I do not believe that the stories we are telling are history. Actually whether they are or are not historical is of little importance to me. I do believe that they touch something real describing the human condition: hope for healing, confidence that there is a right way, and and the radical concept that we can consider all action through a lens that includes loving.
My hope in staging The Mysteries was that each audience member could investigate these characters in a fresh way. My relationship to these characters changes when they are a foot from my face, acting out their stories with emotional conflict that seems appropriate when the human interacts with the devine.
The Mysteries are about the devine, after all...and for me the devine represents all those deep realities we sense as true but can't be proven emperically. How to explore something that can only be sensed? Poetry seems the only answer, and tribal poetry seems the most appropriate form. So... in a culture that is in conflict over the definition of the devine I offer The Mysteries. I hope that we will learn to respect each other as we struggle with these big questions. I know that the cast had wildly divergent opinions on the Bible stories. Together we created a production that speaks for us all. Whether the cast member was an agnostic or studying for the Christian ministry he/she found ways to connect with the other eleven cast members to produce the performance. That act of tribal understanding and compassion stands for something I think.
michael nehring | May 18
During intermission for the first part of "The Mysteries" Michael said to me that these stories feel so old, that there is something almost primitive in them that seems at odds with what we think of as the Judeo-Christian tradition. I pondered over this comment and this moment stayed with me for the next bit of the performance. As I was driving home I realized there are so many narratives within the stories of the Bible. There are the cultures that the Biblical culture supplanted and re-wrote as the Judaic and then the Christian narrative, and there are also the ways in which these myths were imparted to the Medieval and early Renaissance public in Europe. I had been able to see a production of Rina Yerushalmi's version of the Bible stories in Israel a few years ago, and I became conscious (on this very long drive home) that she intentionally brought out the primitive, earthy qualities of the stories and of the Hebrew language itself which was stylized into an almost refracted speech an at the same time grainy and gritty like desert sand.
What is amazing to me in watching the performance here, in LA of 2005, is how resonant the suffering seemed to be for the audience. I was also seized by how the audience as a whole kind of perked up when the whole of the first part was framed as a prelude to the coming of Christ as the tableau of the cross was configured at the end of the first part.
At the same time, another aspect of the biblical stories as filtered through this Medieval Mystery context became more vivid. Shame -- the shame of the fall, of Abraham's capacity to kill, of sexuality, of barrenness, . . . emerges as a major theme within the Bible. I had never really seen it in that way before.
So, thank you for making me think about something that is so much at the core of my own cultural experience.
Erith Jaffe-Berg | May 18
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