On
the Saturday before Easter, Lisa and I found ourselves in one of our favorite
places in the world—New York City—with a free evening. After a little online fishing, we landed two
tickets to the Broadway production of The Testament of Mary. Based on Colm Toibin’s novella of the same
name, the one-woman play stars Fiona Shaw and is directed by Deborah
Warner.
Years
ago, Lisa and I were fortunate enough to see Shaw in a production of Euripides’
Medea that was directed by Warner. It
was, without question, one of the most powerful, memorable, and unsettling
pieces of theater we’ve ever witnessed.
So we were excited at the prospect of seeing the fruits of their latest
project together.
We
anticipated that The Testament of Mary might shock us and shake us a bit, and
we were not disappointed. Some of the
credit here goes to the subject matter of the work. In the monologue, Mary describes the events
that led—with a horrible inevitability—to the crucifixion of Jesus; the
unspeakable suffering she witnessed; the confusion and anger she experienced
over the things His followers seemed to expect of her. But most of the credit for the emotional
power of the play goes to Shaw. Her
capacity to manifest raw pain and injured rage is, in my amateur judgment at
least, unparalleled on the stage.
As
with Medea, I would not recommend The Testament of Mary to everyone. I know many people who would find it too
abrasive, too detached from traditional and scriptural portrayals of the mother
of Jesus, and too disquieting in its implications. I myself have reservations about some parts
of the play. But I left the theater with
two overarching impressions that I am confident will linger with me and will continue
to inform my faith for a very, very long time.
The
first impression relates to the loneliness of Jesus. Certainly, He was often surrounded by crowds
and disciples (Mary calls them “misfits” in the play). But Mary’s description of her son clearly, if
for the most part implicitly, offers up an image of a man who kept his own
counsel, who moved with his own sense of time, and who was always at the center of
things—and yet somehow apart from them.
It is commonplace for us to envision Jesus alone at the time of his
temptations or in the Garden of Gethsemane or on the cross. But I do not think that, until I saw Jesus
through the eyes of His mother, I fully appreciated how much of His life must
have been haunted by the unique loneliness that could only have belonged to
Him.
The
second impression relates to His suffering on the cross. Over the years, I have attended countless
Good Friday services that have attempted in one way or another to convey the
horrible torture that the practice of crucifixion involved. I think this is theologically legitimate. After all, our talk of Jesus dying for us loses
some of its force if we forget what this entailed for him as a human being. But legitimate questions can also be raised
as to the point at which graphic depictions of the crucifixion begin to
distract us from our understanding of this sacrifice as an act of love and
redemption. I took a pass on Mel Gibson’s
film The Passion of the Christ for these sorts of reasons.
The
Testament of Mary persuaded me that this was the right call. If you want to try to get your head around
the sacrifice that the crucifixion entailed, you do not need to see gory images
of nails piercing flesh. You simply need
to hear the act described by the mother of the man being tortured. On a March night in New York City, I feel
like I heard that voice, and I will never forget it.
For
that, I am profoundly grateful.
And I am not just a little changed.
