Dzieci's " A Passion According to Matthew..."

4/25

Dzieic's "A Passion...."

 Passion plays have a long tradition in western Christian culture as a way of teaching the Gospel story via dramatic presentation. There is of course the Oberammergau Passion in Germany and the American one in Spearfish, South Dakota and countless others with their own local traditions.  And of course Sarah Ruhl’s “Passion Play” which gives historic and contemporary perspective to the tradition.

My annual Lent/Eastertide tradition has included New York City based Theatre Dzieici’s “A Passion according to Matthew,”originally created on commission  for the  Abbey of Regina Laudis  nuns  in Betlehem, Connecticutt in 2012. Dzieci’s “Passion” has become an annual seasonal presence in New York City. During my last years at West Park, our annual "Palms to Passion” service became the Dzieci Passion with costumed company players distributing palms on the street outside the church.

Profoundly moving of and to itself, Dzieci’s Passion appears to be  the Nazi era Warsaw ghetto, the company dressed as Eastern European Jews. The text appears as a Torah scroll and is filled with Hebrew…"Yeshua” for Jesus, “Talmudim” for disciples, etc. Jewish liturgical music flows throughout the play.  This poses no issue for most Christian audiences, but for those who are veterans of the Jewish-Christian dialogue experience, there is an immediate shock and reaction to what can feel like cultural misappropriation.

Until one takes a closer look.

Dzieci works within the Grotowski theatre tradition which works seriously with archetype, ritual and deep meaning revealing the universal through the distinct particular. With a profound commitment to “service” and social justice. What do we find in Dzieci’s Passion?

As we watch the scroll of Matthew being unrolled within a community setting, hidden away out of sight of their oppressors, one senses that a deeply treasured story is about to be shared, a story to encourage and strengthen the community in a moment of existential fear.  It is almost as if this story of a Jewish rebel seized and tortured by an oppressive occupying power had remained a hidden Jewish story never captured by an Empire’s religion. In this way, the passion is returned to its original Jewish roots, 

The choice of Matthew is also significant as Raymond Brown and other noted New Testament scholars have noticed that the author of Matthew has structured and grounded his gospel in the Torah with Jesus echoing the journey of Moses and the people Israel.  So too, Dzieici’s adaptation of Matthew restores some of its inherent Jewishness.

Throughout the performance, the Tallis (prayer shawl) used to signify Jesus passes from cast member to cast member symbolizing how we all male, female, young old, all…are the betrayed one, the crucified one. And likewise, we all are the betrayers, judges, executioners. (Which is actually a theological perspective of the reformed Christian tradition as well..)  By making this an experience an explicitly threatened Jewish community in a very particular place, this passion  thus opens its story up for all oppressed communities in any time and place. Dzieci’s Passion creates a place in history, space and time, brings us thoroughly inside of it and thereby makes the  story meaningful in any place and time. 

This year’s Passion was filmed at Hudson Valley’s Boughton Place and is available on demand one more week at  https://dziecitheatre.ticketspice.com/a-passion-on-demand.

This Good Friday

4/18

Theatre Group Dzieci
A Passion

Good Friday. 

There are four cans of liquid nutritional supplement on the steps. And a beautiful long apparently cashmere coat that I drape over the scaffolding railing. By afternoon, all these items are gone .

Geoffrey comes in early, stakes out a space in the back of the sanctuary. Goes to sleep. Earlier Martin had called to say that Soli had seen him downstairs near the restrooms. Yes, that happens. He’s respectful and harmless, though eccentric. Geoffrey, that is.

Karen is playing her music in the sanctuary when  Jean comes in with her work crew of kids from Sacramento, all in  their familiar Presbyterian Disaster Relief t-shirts. They are young. They’ve been working all week rebuilding homes in the Rockaways. RDA is building six. The total needed is 27,000.

Jean and the Sacramento PDA workgroup

I tell the crew the history of the church. It’s struggles. It’s witness. Ending with the ceramic baptismal font cover Dan’s mom Sheryl made. Occupy Wall Street over Tiffany Victoriana. The contractor Don has special interest in the architectural history and is eying things carefully, making mental notes.

They head off to Central Park while I try and get ready for Easter. Danielle places a beautiful cable knit sweater and a straw hat on the steps. Soon, only the hat is left. Late in the day, I decide to head down to the Gate to give RL a head’s up about the kids. But I run into the crew. Jeanie says that she already saw him. So I join them at Caesar’s for pizza. And Don has ideas for a work group to come work on West-Park.

After dinner, they just have a little while to chill before Dzieci’s A Passion. As this is the day we commemorate the passion of Christ, the timing is right. The play begins. It’s evening dark this time. Some blocking has been changed since last week. But again, I’m drawn into their story. I’m watching closely, wanting  to understand how it works. It’s like a community gathered for ritual. One that has happened over and again. Perhaps at a scheduled time every year. Familiar and yet new.  Trading well known, familiar roles  around. And in the midst of telling the  story, it becomes real and present and we are in the midst of it as a real time reality.

As the dance to a lively Hinay ma tov reaches its peak, they are inviting audience members  to join in. One does. It’s former Dzieci Isis, back for this performance in a dance she knows so well with old friends. Hinay ma tov…

It’s that song that will bring us back together after the scroll has been left, tied up as in a burial shroud but at the same time an object of respect and veneration. And we all go out together. Later, in conversation, Jean will say, I have never been so moved by a passion and Matt says, Let me take that down. Rev. Jean from Sacramento? And Jean is immediately trying to figure out how to get them to Sacramento. Somewhere in there we notice Geoffrey is still here. 

The Dzieci want to talk with the kids. And this is where things start to go awry. They are already in the chapel where Open Mic is getting ready to begin. So there’s a moment of confusion and then the Dzieci thank the kids and exit.

A couple of the kids are planning on performing. RL opens. Then Dion with his good hearted stand up. Then a female comedian announces she wants to work hard. Or let’s say blue. And awkward uncertainty sets in until Jean decides to lead them all out. In the hall, they encounter Joel and Jean

A hug with Joel

persuades him to do an impromptu improve. Which he does.

Then they are out the door.  One of the kids brings a message that the blue comedian is done and please come back. Just for one song. Jean hesitates a minute but has already made her exit s the crew is on their way to the subway and back to Jamaica.

Halfway down the block, I want to run after them and yell come back, come back. I think I know what RL has in mind. Another 10 minutes won’t matter. Opportunities come once and vanish. For every second chance I’ve had there’s an equal number of never to come agains. You never know. By the time I think this through, they’re an avenue block away.

I’m kicking myself for not having insisted when RL steps outside. I’m sorry, I say. I am too, he says. And then, you’re out of practice. I look at him, a question on my face. …. dealing with rational people, he says. And I appreciate that.Trying to make me feel better. But I’m going to brood on this awhile. So I’m lost in my head while the comedian’s boyfriend Chris lays down a solid electric guitar set which RL compares to Duane Eddy. And I barely notice another stand up guy who seems to be off in his own stream of consciousness without a paddle.

Chris plays a mean guitar solo

But I snap out of it in the middle of Joel’s performance when he enters into a riff on his encounter with Jean and the crew and he just lays me out. He weaves his emotions about their work, their faces. Luckily, his videographer friend caught the performance. It sort of healed the night for me. Sort of.

By the time I came on, we were down to close friends and associates. So RL decides to take a different approach to stay awhile. Kind of slow, reflective. And that’s how it ends.

This Good Friday.


for more Good Fridays: http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/search?q=good+friday

Palms and passion Sunday

4/13

It's Palm Sunday

It’s Palm Sunday. Dion has arrived early to help me separate the palms. Like shucking corn, he says as we strip the palms together.

In the sanctuary, Dzieci is going through one more rehearsal of their Passion. When they are finished, they will join Dion and I on the steps and begin to pass out palms to those entering the church and passersby. An Orthodox Jewish man stops and says, about the waving palms, we do that on sukkot…. And looks somewhat puzzled at the Dzieci dressed in 1930’s shtetl clothes.

We do that on sukkot

The Passion play is based on the gospel of Matthew, but with names and words put back into Hebrew. Jesus, eg, becomes Yeshua, Judas Yehuda, Mary Miriam and the disciples Talmudim. It begins in semi-darkness, the cast rising from the congregation and coming forward while singing Hinay ma tov umanayim, chevet achim gan yahad…How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in harmony (Psalm 133)….Jesus wears a white prayer shawl and throughout the telling of the story, the role of Jesus will shift and change. Men and women, young and old. As will the betrayer.(s). The one who was Judas will become Jesus and vice versa. When the Last Supper is shared, the cast moves through the congregation with matzoh and wine. (So fitting on the day before Passover…). And when the play is ended, when the tomb is left, there is a simple scroll of scripture, like  Torah, wrapped in the prayer shawl and left on the communion table.

It’s very much like a story told within a community. A story that has been told and experienced over and over again. Archetypal. And yet unique and particular to each community that has lived through it. Dzieci evokes a particular time and place. But by being specific, opens up the universal.

Leaving, palms still waving

As Hinay ma tov is sung once more, slowly, quietly, the Dzieci lead the  congregation out the doors and onto the steps and sidewalk. We make a circle. Palms once more waving. People stop, ask for the palms. When the Dzieci leave and go back inside and West-Park people gather for a meeting, we decide to leave the palms on the steps.

Our congregation meets to deal with the outcome of the big deal not going through. We have to vote to authorize expenditures from the manse sale for ongoing expenses, something we did not want to do. For a period of sixty days so that we can solidify the strategy for the congregation in terms of congregational revitalization and revenue enhancement. Two work groups will be formed. To report back in 2 to 3 weeks. We’ve got a heavy DIY load ahead. A season of rebirth to come. 

we made a circle

When I look outside after the meeting, all the palms are gone. I think of the circle that began back on Ash Wednesday, the people coming in form the streets for ashes from last year’s palms and now to receive plans that will become next year’s ashes. I love the people coming  up to take a palm, perhaps never  quite sure why themselves, but connecting to a need to connect to something.

It’s Palm Sunday.

Read about other Palm Sundays:http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/search?q=palm+sunday

How good and pleasant it is

4/18

Marsha and Hope and I meet at the Bean across the street to talk about the congregation. The extended uncertainty weighs on us all.  And has been hard on those who have endured, stayed faithful for years.

i come back across the street to meet with Kimberley. We review and evaluate her last worship service. And the musical review/exploration of Genesis she did at Union. Were hoping to do it here, but most of her cast is heading home as the semester is all too quickly coming to a close. She’s got something well worth doing.

Deacon James stops in, wearing his Korean War vet’s hat. On his way back form the hospital. Wants me to know he’s still alive. breathing’s hard, but he’s hanging in. 

A man comes in. Has a job interview. Needs clothes. Has an appointment at St. John the Divine. I help him get there.

Martin is conducting a workshop. Stephen has been working with him, sharing with him a photographer’s eye on perspective. Thinking again about Elizabeth Herman’s striking portrait gallery from Occupy.(http://www.transtudies.org/Photos_Herman.html ) Especially her shot of me looking off to the side.

Stephen impressed by Martin’s broad ranging interests and insatiable curiosity and how he brings that all to his work. That’s why he’s here, I say. 

Cara is in to sweep and clean and play awhile before Dzieci arrives for the healing circle.

Rachelle has all her things spread out on a bench, going through them piece by piece, item by item. Nothing really of value, but she feels it’s important work. In her mind, she’s still the bright cultured woman professor living on the East Side.

Anna comes in. More than anything, she’s a a woman with a deep compassion for others. And a desire to help, to fix things if she could. In #OWS, she was known as Big Bertha, but for me, she should only be called Anna. There’s someone she cares about deeply. And in two minutes rattles off a dozen or more alternative strategies and resource references to execute them. I say, Do you have any idea how much you have just told me in the last two minutes? I can’t even remember  it or write it down fast enough ...She smiles and says, So I’m doing it again huh? and I smile. Her capacity to retain all this information is nothing short of amazing. 

Frog & Peach deep into rehearsal.

Matt from Dzieci wants to schedule their Cirkus Luna!, a family troupe hailing from East Molvenia....I share with him the reviews of their Passion, those who were upset with their using the communion table as a prop and not having a more recognizable worship experience to frame it and those who wondered if it were not inappropriate appropriation of Jewish symbols for a Christian story. And those who felt moved to tears, as if they had never truly understood the story as their own before. I want to talk more with him about worship, ritual and performance. About where the lines are. And whether the lines are even important. And how this experience can be used to build a community. But we run out of time. 

The healing circle continues to intrigue me. Touches my skepticism and desire. Always new people as well as the Dzieici circle. Totally non-verbal, resonance of ancient tribal chant, medieval church, monastery, coven....Matt completely aware and watching and directing. A circle diverse enough to defy characterization. 

After it’s over, Cara tells me she’ll miss church because she’ll be at a wedding. 

When the others leave, i stay for the Dzieci evaluation of their passion experience. I share the critiques I’ve heard. The problematic histories of passion plays. Matt speaks of the first time he did this was at a convent with nuns. In habit. How the creation emerged from their community. This was different. 

One’s husband felt it conveyed the idea that the Jews killed Christ, but that was a lone experience. 

Many of the cast were from a Jewish background. Including Orthodox. Had wanted to explore what had been for them an alien, forbidden world and found a story that had its roots in their own. Those from a Christian background understood for the first time the origins of bread and wine. The Eucharist rooted in passover. And for all of them, the power of the use of kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning that goes deep into their memories, the mourning prayer that doen’t speak of death but only affirms life.  

And I speak of how ending without resurrection not visible, with a reaffirmed community recessing to hinay ma tov (how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in harmony, psalm 133) underscores my understanding of the victory in being willing to follow faithfully to the end, even the cross. And through the following, find transformation. 

And how the meta level has not only a community reality but that of the individual as well. Inside each of us we are the betrayer and the betrayed, the crucifiers and the crucified, Judas and Jesus. The reality inside each of us.

The discussion ends. Martin’s workshop is continuing. Frog & Peach has finished. Share a few words with Lynnea. Try to explain Dzieci. Namechck Grotowski and Brook. Lynnea’s trying to bring her Measure  for Measure home. My day is over. 

Palm Sunday: A Passion Play

3/24

Palm Sunday.  

Dzieci is there rehearsing their Passion Play as I arrive. Cara has arrived, ready to get the steps clean and ready. And ready to pass out palms.

Cara and palms

Anna ready to hustle the crowds. I’m feeling anxious.

People begin arriving in the darkened sanctuary. Only a simple communion table in front. The cast is dressed like Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. We gather in the back of the sanctuary and enter in procession, with palms, chanting Hosanna, hosanna in the highest. 

I introduce the service. Read the the triumphal entry into Jerusalem as it is in Matthew. Then there is silence. 

Then the Dzieci, from different corners of the church, come together  singing Hinay ma tov u manayim, chevet achim gan yahad. (How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in harmony.) The gather around the table with a Torah like scroll. One cast member is given a white prayer shawl, begins as the character of Yeshua (Jesus). First comes the anointing by Mary with oil. Then the betrayal by Yehuda (Judas).  

Then the talmudim (disciples) gather around the table to celebrate pesach (Passover, the Last Supper). Echoes of da Vinci. By now the shawl has been passed to another actor, a young woman, who takes over as Yeshua. All characters will trade parts throughout the play. 

Yeshua uses the traditional Hebrew prayers for blessing the bread, Baruch ata adonoai, elohenu melech ha olam, ha motzi lehem min haaretz (Blessed are you Adonai our creator, who brings forth bread from the earth) and wine, Baruch ata adonai, elohenu melech ha olam, boray pri ha gafen...(Blessed are you Adonai our creator, who brings forth the fruit of the vine..) and the bread and wine are passed through the congregation. The passion continues through the Garden, the betrayal, arrest, trial and ultimately crucifixion. Roles constantly shifting. Until Yeshua is taken down from the cross, cradled Pieta like by a woman. 

Then the scroll is rolled up again and the cast recesses, singing Hinay ma tov once again. There is profound silence in the sanctuary. Then applause. 

It was a moving performance ritual. The table, the only set. On the front is carved Do this in remembrance of me. And so it was. The Warsaw Ghetto setting opened up a metatext. The passing of the prayer shawl and shifting parts had what one person  called an everyman experience. That is, all were Jesus. And all betrayers. We are all both. Contain both. And so the experienced  truth of the story reaches down to the archetypal depths.

As my friend Beppe said, It was the most soulful Passion rite I have experienced in a church.…this time, for the first time, I was moved to tears. It was delightfully unassuming and powerful.

We meet, as always, to update where we are. As always, somewhere between solution and abyss.  

Outside, Cara and I see two actors, just finished lunch.  We sing on the way out because we come to the passion knowing the resurrection already has happened. And I bring up the everyman angle. And the other actor says, ...and we crucify the Christ inside ourselves...and I say, It’s so easy for us  to believe that everyone deserves forgiveness but ourselves...

The Dzieci Passion Play cast