Sight & Sound

by Kirk Woodward

[My friend Kirk Woodward hasn’t sent an article into Rick On Theater since “George Abbott” on 14 October, but he’s back now with “Sight & Sound,” a report on a Christian religious-based theater company two of whose productions Kirk recently saw.  From his perspective as both a practicing Christian and a theater professional, Kirk describes and evaluates the work of this company.  Sight & Sound fills a niche in the American theater scene that I suspect most of us don’t experience, or even consider, very often, and I think Kirk’s well-considered examination of it is well worth acknowledging and looking at. 

[Just to remind ROTters, Kirk’s recent guest posts on this blog have included “Mr. Dylan Gets Religion,” 23 April; “Stephen Schwartz,” 2 August; “Agatha Christie: Dramatist,” 1 September; and one half of “The Originalist Squared” (with my second half), 7 August.  (For other posts from Kirk, ROT’s most generous and reliable contributor, use the search engine, above left, and type in “Kirk Woodward.”  His work, always provocative and interesting, goes all the way back to the beginning of the blog in 2009.)]

Religion is a belief system; theater is a craft of performance. It might seem easy to combine the two – why not simply do a performance about a belief system? But in practice the two don’t always blend easily. Theater’s purpose is, in Hamlet’s words, to “hold the mirror up to nature,” but a religion promotes a particular definition of what that mirror ought to show.

The results of “using drama to prove a point” are often unsatisfactory. There are exceptions, one of which I described in an article in this blog on the play “The Tidings Brought to Mary” by Paul Claudel (see “Religious Drama,” posted on Rick On Theater on 19 January 2014). But Claudel’s play is deeply mysterious, and in any case exceptions tend to prove the rule.

Clearly “religious drama” can mean nothing more than a drama with a religious subject. For example, the play Saint Joan (1923) by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) dramatizes a number of issues involving religion, such as the relation of individual experience to the teachings of church doctrine. Shaw does not appear to promote a particular church or a particular established theology; his play holds those elements in tension, and the result is powerful theater. In many other plays of this sort, their creators' intentions are possibly interesting but mostly irrelevant. 

Sometimes, however, a dramatic work appears, at least, to be created on the principle that the role of art is to serve God, and that therefore art is to be judged by how well it does God’s work. Tolstoy adopted this idea in later years; he found himself unable to see how purely aesthetic interests mattered, when God’s work was so important.

By this standard, categories of “good” and “bad” art are irrelevant; what matters is how well the work does God’s work. One problem with this approach is that it tends to be adopted by censors, fanatics, and dictators, who have their own ideas of what the good is and who also have the means to impose their standards on others.

Another problem is that, with religious art and practically any other kind of art, a work that’s created with a teaching purpose may well be dreary. How can it help it? There’s limited joy of discovery in creating something that’s already figured out what it wants to say.

Another approach, which we might call the aesthetic approach, is to say that there is no such thing as religious art at all. There’s only art, whether good or bad. Art takes as its subject whatever it wants, whether it’s religion or politics or love or whatever.

This approach ends all arguments, because it makes ideas of religion irrelevant – which is also its problem. Religion has its own claims. For example, one can read the Bible for its imagery, but it wasn’t written simply as a literary work, and at some point that fact may insist on being taken into account.

If we are of a scholarly turn of mind, we can take an anthropological approach and say that works of art reflect the ideas of religion held by people at the time. This approach looks backward into history, noting, for example, that the ancient Greek tragedies were performed as elements of religious festivals. The approach also looks beyond Western art, to non-Western cultures, looking at the way different cultures present themselves, often without attempts at value judgments on their beliefs or art forms. A limitation of this approach, again, is that it tends to trivialize religion, and whatever else it may be, religion is not a trivial matter.

A more recent version of the anthropological approach is the modernist declaration that today’s world has destroyed the coherence of works of art so that it’s meaningless to say that a work is “religious”, or for that matter to label it in any other way.

A post-modernist critic versed in deconstructionism would go even further and say that no matter what its intent, a work of art can only reflect the oppressive power structure of its time. This approach negates the experience of art, particularly the distinction between greater and lesser works.

Or we can go in the other direction, and say that on the contrary, all art is religious. The limitation of this viewpoint is that if everything is religion, then nothing is – what’s the point of talking about religion at all if what we mean by religion is “life”?

I offer these reflections because, as noted above, I recently had the opportunity to see two stage productions based on Bible stories, Moses (at a movie theater near my home) and Jesus (with a church group), created by Sight & Sound Theatres. I offer these reflections because, as noted above, I recently had the opportunity to see two stage productions based on Bible stories, Moses and Jesus, created by Sight & Sound Theatres. I had heard about their productions for years, and people I know at a church in New Jersey have made an annual bus trip to see Sight & Sound shows for years. A friend convinced me that I ought to see at least one of their productions, if only to see their brand of theatricality for myself.  

Sight & Sound is a for-profit commercial company with a Christian evangelical mission, founded by Pennsylvania farmer, Glenn Eshelman and his wife, Shirley, who began with a traveling slide show for churches in 1964 that expanded into a theatrical production company aimed at general audiences – but always with a Christian bent. Sight & Sound presented its first full-scale stage production (Behold the Lamb) in 1987, and to date has presented twenty or so different shows at its two theaters in Ronks (in Lancaster County), Pennsylvania, and Branson, Missouri. I saw a film of the stage production of Moses, and I saw the company’s newest production, Jesus, in Pennsylvania.

                                                                                                

Because of the Biblical subject matter of these shows, I ought to say something about my own background. I’m an active Christian, and I preach in churches in the Presbyterian Church USA, a “mainstream” denomination. I’ve also worked in theater for years, as director, playwright, and actor, on plays of all sorts. In particular I’ve written a number of plays that have been produced, and some of them have had religious themes.

I tend to resolve the conflict between religion and theater (if there is one) in my own mind by supporting the right of a playwright to write whatever kind of play she or he feels called on to write. Playwrights take their chances on the success of their plays, but if one feels compelled to write a play with a theme, let the chips fall where they may.

My position, however, does not extend to Moses, because the script for that show was not written primarily as the result of an artistic spark, but as a “work for hire.” How do I know this? Because no writers are credited for the work. In fact no one who works on the production is credited by name. (There is also no “curtain call” at the end of a Sight & Sound show.)

This policy is not unique with Sight & Sound; I have observed it in other Biblical spectacles presented by churches. The theology involved, apparently, is that everything in the production is done for the glory of God, so individuals should not be named.

I find this idea both pretentious and un-Biblical. Moses and Jesus, just to name two figures in the Bible, are both identified by name in that book. Shouldn’t writers, actors, and technicians be named as well? The Apostle Paul lists many of his co-workers in his letters in the Bible. Why shouldn’t theater co-workers also be listed? 

In any case, the script of Moses appears to have been created by committee. Maybe it was – the script is notably uneven. Dialogue is elevated and lofty one minute, modern and conversational the next. Plot lines appear and disappear. The musical numbers frequently seem to have been heavily influenced by  Broadway shows (Les Miserables comes to mind), and occasionally from Disney films. 

However, the quality of the writing is not a major advertising point about Moses, or for that matter about Jesus. Two things are primarily important in these shows: they are based on Bible stories, and they are spectacular. To take them in reverse order:

Spectacular – Sight & Sound’s stages are huge (the two theaters are close to each other in design), some 300 feet in total length, making Broadway houses seem cramped by comparison. The performance area includes three sides of the theater – the regular “stage,” which is huge, and along the walls on the right and left of the audience – plus a center aisle that can be either a conduit for audience members or a playing space.

Using a mixture of set pieces and projections, plus numerous special effects, the shows achieve an almost cinematic effect. For example, when Moses escapes from Egypt, he walks on a small, multi-directional treadmill, on a stage floor filled with smoke, while behind him sweeps a scenic panorama that takes him from Pharaoh’s palace, past the pyramids and the Sphinx, across the desert, and into the mountains, while music blares.

Big scenes, in other words, are the theater’s meat, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Opera, of course, tends to run toward spectacle – “grand opera” is often an accurate description. Parsifal (1882), written by Richard Wagner (1813-1883), is certainly a spectacular opera with religion as its subject, although the exact nature of that religion is open to debate. Wagner, however, wrote the entire opera himself – it was anything but a committee creation.

Sight & Sound is an avowedly “evangelical” company – each show ends with an “altar call,” an invitation for audience members to join with members of the company in counselling and prayer. Not surprisingly, then, their productions are all Biblically based, usually centered around the stories of individual characters in the Bible, as can be seen from the titles of recent productions: Noah - the Musical, Joseph, Jonah, Moses, Samson, and the enormously popular current production Jesus.

Dramatizing a story from the Bible is not necessarily easy. Our era wants to know about the psychology of a character, often conveyed through a “back story.” The Bible provides little of either. Instead, it describes emblematic moments.

A dramatist often must, so to speak, “fill in the blanks” in the Biblical narrative, and the risks of this process surely are evident. Biblical incidents are presented side by side with recent inventions by (in the case of Moses) faceless writers; audience members may even imagine that they’re hearing scripture when they’re only hearing contemporary dialogue.

To say the least, the literary contribution of a contemporary writer may not quite equal that of a work that has held the interest of readers for over three thousand years.

One possible reason stories in the Bible are so memorable is that their readers are able to create details of the stories for themselves – perhaps drawn from their own lives. On the other hand, a drama on stage gives stories, as a character in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream says, “a local habitation and a name,” limiting the audience’s imagination in the same way that a music video is likely to become tightly associated with the song it illustrates.

INTERLUDE

A friend of my daughter auditioned with Sight & Sound for the role of the archangel Michael in their production The Nativity. He had learned the assigned song and expected that at the audition he would sing the song and read from the script.

As soon as he came on stage, however, a crew fixed him in a harness, strapped on him two angel wings each about ten feet long, and hoisted him into the air. He had had no idea this was going to happen. Nevertheless, he started to sing.

Then the wings malfunctioned, a technician ran onto the stage shouting "Stop!" and the crew worked on the system for a few minutes, coaching him how to move the wings in order to help fix them.

Finally they lowered him, quite shaken, to the ground. They took off the wings and the harness, and as he stood there, breathing heavily, the director said to him, "Okay, let's take the song from the top!"  The actor was offered the role as an understudy. He declined.

I saw the Sight & Sound production of Jesus on November 1, 2018, at the Millennium Theater in Ronks. In appearance the theater is a cross between an idea of a building in ancient Jerusalem and a Los Vegas casino, a feeling that continues in the lobby with its lights, displays, cafes, and shops. The wide auditorium seats just over 2,000 people in a series of sweeping rows.

The “special effects” in Jesus are stunning. Fishing boats float on the sea and rock appallingly in storms. Live animals behave just as they’re supposed to – camels, horses, pigs, doves. Rocks split, wind blows (in the auditorium!), rain falls, people travel among towns that effortlessly glide onto the stage, reconfigure themselves, and glide off again.

(Well, not entirely effortlessly – the stage does not have a turntable, and one could occasionally spot human beings pushing set pieces from one area to another, which I found comforting.)

The elaborate production values in Jesus are its calling card, of course, and deservedly may bring in audience members who might not have a vested interest in its religious theme.

Thinking ahead, I assumed that a major problem with the show would be the characterization of Jesus, who of course is not physically described in the Bible at all. I actually had no problem there. The actor playing the role is personable and physically not at all intimidating. I would like to know more about him as an actor but, as I mentioned earlier, his name is not available to the audience.

(From news accounts it appears that one actor playing the role – apparently there are two, but judging from a photo he is the one I saw – is Brandon Talley, who graduated from Elon University in 2004 and has worked ever since with Sight & Sound. I know this because of a published article, not from the show’s program, since there barely is one.  Elon is a liberal arts school in Elon, North Carolina, founded in 1889, originally but no longer officially affiliated with the United Church of Christ denomination.)

For Jesus exactly one name is offered in the program: Joshua Enck is credited as “Producer/Director.” Enck, now 41 years old, became the president and chief creative officer of Sight & Sound in 2015. (The chief executive officer of the company is Matt Neff, also 41.) Enck’s name does appear in the tiny program, called “Insight,” and his director’s note offers a clue to the success of the production.

“What you are about to experience,” he writes, “is not a history lesson on the most famous person ever to walk the earth. It is not even necessarily a story of Jesus’ life.” Enck tells how a theme of “love that rescues” began to emerge as the show’s creators (otherwise unnamed) read the gospel accounts.

The theme of “rescue” does provide a thread through the entire show, and so there is a dramatic continuity to Jesus that the script of Moses simply does not have. Enck and his team could have chosen other themes, but to choose one and stick to it, whatever it is, is essential for a production of this scale. I conclude from the coherence of the storytelling in Jesus that the theater’s current leadership, at least, is as committed to theatrical excellence as it is to proselyting.

One example from Jesus may suffice. Mark 5:1-20 tells the story of the demon-possessed man running amok in a graveyard, healed by Jesus. In the Sight & Sound production, the graveyard is situated along a seaside cliff. On the left, as the audience looks at the stage, a boat loaded with Jesus’ disciples tosses realistically on what appears to be a rugged sea, while the “sky” above the scene seems to be heading for a storm.

On the audience’s right, the insane man rages on top of a craggy, almost inaccessible promontory, leaping from rock to rock and shouting imprecations at everyone, including the people in the boat, while further to the right is a crowd of townspeople, alternately yelling at the man and trying to figure out what to do about him. The effect is one of chaos wherever one looks.

In the midst of all this upheaval, Jesus clambers from the boat onto the rocks and slowly begins to make his way up the cliff, never rushing, occasionally shouting friendly encouragement to the lunatic above him, taking his time, deliberately climbing over one rock after another, while the disciples in the boat urge him to turn back, or at least to be careful. He is the only calm, almost cheerful element in a wild scene. After a while he disappears behind the rocks, while the turmoil continues. Eventually we see him again – he has made it all the way to the top, and he unthreateningly moves toward his encounter with the screaming man…

I hope it is clear from this representative description that what could be a fairly routine depiction of a miracle is powerfully presented, but in a way that serves the story. The contrast between Jesus’ calmness and the frenzy of everyone else in the scene, and the slow, deliberate way in which he moves toward his encounter with the madman, is both thematically and theatrically effective.

I have a few reservations about the show. I felt a loss of focus toward the end of the first act. (The second act, the story of what Christians call “Passion Week,” Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, is dramatic in the gospel accounts and similarly dramatic on stage.) I also felt that the action, or really the lack of it, immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross was too drawn out.  

The musical numbers in the show are merely functional, and a short dance interlude seems obligatory and unnecessary. The motivations of Judas, who betrays Jesus, are mostly slapped together in one song and seem to be arbitrary decisions on the part of the writers, not based on what the audience had seen before that point.

I also feel that Sight & Sound has an uneasy relationship with Judaism and I was extremely uncomfortable, both in Moses and in Jesus, with what one might call “religious appropriation.” In Moses I fell this particularly in the Passover scene, where elements of actual ritual are mixed with at least one major Christian symbol, when a cross mysteriously appears over a house where Passover is being observed. In Jesus the issue surfaced in the scene where the Sanhedrin, an ancient tribunal of elders, gathers.

Obviously Sight & Sound is a Christian enterprise, but sorry, folks, it is not acceptable at any time to take someone else’s living ritual and employ it for your own purposes.

Having said those things, I’ve covered my objections. In general the production comes across as open-hearted and cheerful. (I have no way of knowing, of course, how many if any people experience the show as a religious turning point in their lives.) Artistically speaking, it accomplishes what it intends to. Scenically, it is overwhelming. The acting level is high, and the story, on its own terms, is coherent.

We may note, nevertheless, that Jesus doesn’t solve the question of the relation of religion and art; it merely illustrates one possibility. Jesus is a work of religious art because it says it is – there’s no question about it. Sight & Sound explicitly considers its productions opportunities for evangelism. So they answer the question of the nature of “religious art” to their own satisfaction. Other issues remain.