Well, the play's run has ended and I am sitting here waiting for post-production let-down to hit. For six weeks I have been spending almost every evening down at the theater and now it is over. I know there will be other shows but I also know for the next few days when 6:00 rolls around I will feel empty, like what do I do now? But it won't last. That is the bittersweet part of being part of theater.
This morning when I went to church someone told me that they had googled my play to see if it was "ok" to go see, and they ended up being confused. Apparently there is another play that has come out recently with the same name which is not exactly "family-friendly". And it didn't sound anything at all like my play! I said, a little reproachfully, "Do you honestly think that I would encourage you to come to a play if I knew it had potentially offensive elements?" (Although with some people these days, it is hard telling just what those elements might be). In other words, "don't you trust me?" Well--apparently not. I'm sorry but I can't live that way. I can see looking up a play or a movie to see if the plot might interest me, if I didn't know anything about it, but they could have asked me; in fact, I specifically said this play was family-friendly, that the only thing is it might not be appropriate for very small children due to its length (more than 2 hours).
The play is an older British play called "Sight Unseen," and it revolves around a haunted mansion that is up for sale and the ghosts' plot to foil the sale. Lady Judith Elliot, the owner of the mansion, is faced with the decision to sell the house or let the government take it for taxes. Up to this point, the ghosts have succeeded in driving away all potential buyers, but now an American psychic, Mrs. Malone, and her nephew Henry (the skeptical scientist) have appeared on the scene. Mrs. Malone wants to buy the house and turn it into a psychic research laboratory, but on one condition, Lady Judith has to prove beyond all doubt that the house is haunted. Warns Mrs. Malone, "If there is anything I can't stand, it is someone who claims to be a psychic, and isn't. I have put more than 20 in jail on charges of extortion and fraud."
So now the ghosts have a problem: they especially don't want Mrs. Malone to buy the house because it would mean that they would be at her beck and call, studied "like beetles in a bottle" and "worn to the ectoplasm" with appearing and disappearing but they have to do it without revealing that they exist. So they decide that they simply won't cooperate, when Lady Judith summons them, they won't appear, even though it is breaking tradition. In desperation, Lady Judith and her fiancee, Andrews, resort to faking an apparition at a seance with predictable results. Mrs. Malone cries "fraud" and vows to set the law on the pair.
This is just to give a little background on what follows next. Lady Judith and Henry are alone following the fake seance; Andrews has stormed out of the house vowing revenge on the ghosts and Mrs. Malone has gone to her room to pack. Lady Judith starts out, "You must think me a despicable fraud." This gives Henry his opening, yes, but it doesn't matter what she has done, it doesn't matter how contemptible she is, he loves her, "if our love can survive this, it can survive anything" and so forth. In other words, Henry is behaving towards Lady Judith the way Calvinist theology says God looks at us. Yes, Judith is depraved, yes Judith is contemptible, but--all that matters is "I love you." "I really wish you wouldn't throw that word (contemptible) around so much," she says, "I didn't say I was contemptible, I only said you must think me contemptible!" Henry keeps declaring his love, saying that he can't help it even though she is (yet again) contemptible: "this won't be the first despicable deed you've done and it won't be the last--but it doesn't matter." Lady Judith isn't buying this: "Oh, be she ever so vile, there's nobody like Judith." Apparently she hasn't read the "Calvinist script".
Sitting there in rehearsal hearing this scene over and over, I couldn't help being reminded of what Pastor says about God's love for us despite our total depravity, and I am thinking that Lady Judith's reaction to Henry's declaration of love is completely the opposite of how we "depraved" humans are supposed to react to God's declaration of love. She doesn't run to embrace Henry (well, she does by the end of the play), instead she responds with disbelief and horror. And who can blame her? Is it natural to love someone who tells you you are totally depraved? I don't think so.
Maybe on second thought, "Sight Unseen" really wasn't all that faith-friendly after all.
This morning when I went to church someone told me that they had googled my play to see if it was "ok" to go see, and they ended up being confused. Apparently there is another play that has come out recently with the same name which is not exactly "family-friendly". And it didn't sound anything at all like my play! I said, a little reproachfully, "Do you honestly think that I would encourage you to come to a play if I knew it had potentially offensive elements?" (Although with some people these days, it is hard telling just what those elements might be). In other words, "don't you trust me?" Well--apparently not. I'm sorry but I can't live that way. I can see looking up a play or a movie to see if the plot might interest me, if I didn't know anything about it, but they could have asked me; in fact, I specifically said this play was family-friendly, that the only thing is it might not be appropriate for very small children due to its length (more than 2 hours).
The play is an older British play called "Sight Unseen," and it revolves around a haunted mansion that is up for sale and the ghosts' plot to foil the sale. Lady Judith Elliot, the owner of the mansion, is faced with the decision to sell the house or let the government take it for taxes. Up to this point, the ghosts have succeeded in driving away all potential buyers, but now an American psychic, Mrs. Malone, and her nephew Henry (the skeptical scientist) have appeared on the scene. Mrs. Malone wants to buy the house and turn it into a psychic research laboratory, but on one condition, Lady Judith has to prove beyond all doubt that the house is haunted. Warns Mrs. Malone, "If there is anything I can't stand, it is someone who claims to be a psychic, and isn't. I have put more than 20 in jail on charges of extortion and fraud."
So now the ghosts have a problem: they especially don't want Mrs. Malone to buy the house because it would mean that they would be at her beck and call, studied "like beetles in a bottle" and "worn to the ectoplasm" with appearing and disappearing but they have to do it without revealing that they exist. So they decide that they simply won't cooperate, when Lady Judith summons them, they won't appear, even though it is breaking tradition. In desperation, Lady Judith and her fiancee, Andrews, resort to faking an apparition at a seance with predictable results. Mrs. Malone cries "fraud" and vows to set the law on the pair.
This is just to give a little background on what follows next. Lady Judith and Henry are alone following the fake seance; Andrews has stormed out of the house vowing revenge on the ghosts and Mrs. Malone has gone to her room to pack. Lady Judith starts out, "You must think me a despicable fraud." This gives Henry his opening, yes, but it doesn't matter what she has done, it doesn't matter how contemptible she is, he loves her, "if our love can survive this, it can survive anything" and so forth. In other words, Henry is behaving towards Lady Judith the way Calvinist theology says God looks at us. Yes, Judith is depraved, yes Judith is contemptible, but--all that matters is "I love you." "I really wish you wouldn't throw that word (contemptible) around so much," she says, "I didn't say I was contemptible, I only said you must think me contemptible!" Henry keeps declaring his love, saying that he can't help it even though she is (yet again) contemptible: "this won't be the first despicable deed you've done and it won't be the last--but it doesn't matter." Lady Judith isn't buying this: "Oh, be she ever so vile, there's nobody like Judith." Apparently she hasn't read the "Calvinist script".
Sitting there in rehearsal hearing this scene over and over, I couldn't help being reminded of what Pastor says about God's love for us despite our total depravity, and I am thinking that Lady Judith's reaction to Henry's declaration of love is completely the opposite of how we "depraved" humans are supposed to react to God's declaration of love. She doesn't run to embrace Henry (well, she does by the end of the play), instead she responds with disbelief and horror. And who can blame her? Is it natural to love someone who tells you you are totally depraved? I don't think so.
Maybe on second thought, "Sight Unseen" really wasn't all that faith-friendly after all.
