Epic takes PASSION PLAY preview #1 to chilly outdoors, with entry by Sarah Ruhl

What a crazy night - 3 hours and 20 minutes into the first preview of PASSION PLAY at the Irondale Center on Tuesday night, fire alarms went off, sending cast, staff and 100 or so audience members out to the cold, but there was no waiting for alarms to subside -- instead, the actors took their passion to the chilly streets and quickly placed themselves atop the church steps for an eager, supportive and gracious audience. They embodied the spirit of the play and the adage "the show must go on."

I'd been sitting bathroom duty downstairs in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church basement making sure the male actors who are utilizing those restrooms didn't accidentally set off the church alarms -- and suddenly the fire alarms sounded, sending me into a slightly confused panic, collecting my things, to find that the theater upstairs had quickly emptied. It wasn't a door alarm, no -- it was a smoke alarm, reacting to a fog cue gone awry. "Is it raining outside?" I heard someone ask behind me on the way downstairs to the front exit. As the door opened, I heard what sounded like sheets of rain smacking the pavement, but quickly realized that it was actually thunderous applause from an audience giddy to watch the committed actors generously continue their scene outdoors.

The irony of the scene was perfect: "I don't know if I can play this moment without the arc of the whole play," was the line delivered by Hale Appleman, the shirtless young actor playing the actor who plays Jesus in the scene (it makes sense when you see it):

Watch the video: "'Passion Play,' Outdoors"

The alarms quieted about fifteen minutes later, so the stage manager shepherded us back inside to finish the final scenes of the play. "The generosity of these people!" one audience member commented to me on our way back to the cozy indoors, referring to the underdressed actors, "I'm crying."

It was a magical way to start the run of this NY Premiere of Sarah Ruhl's most ambitious play, and Epic's most complicated production in its nine seasons. Up in the dressing room later on, the actors chattered about the excitement of the final act, agreeing that it was a perfect fit with the play's themes of community, theater, and allowing real life to collide with stage.

After the show, I heard cast member Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. comment on the experience to fellow cast mates. "This," he said, "is what the play all about."

Posted on Thu, April 29, 2010 by Jill Seplowitz, Audience Development Associate

3 comments (Add your own)

1. Sarah Ruhl wrote:: At our first performance of Passion Play in front of an audience, a fire alarm went off during Act 3. The audience was evacuated, as were all the actors, dressed in Biblical clothes on a windy night. After some milling around on the steps of the church, when it was clear we would all be outside for a while, the actors decided to go on with the play. First, Nicole sang a song about a tollbooth from Act 3, where we'd stopped. I thought perhaps we'd just have the song as an interlude; but slowly the audience quieted and gathered round, and somehow one after another, the actors came up and performed their scenes with no blocking, no props, no nothing, in silent agreement. A stage manager improvised a lighting cue with a flashlight, pretending to be a car; a cross was improvised with two actors hoisting up another actor, a sound cue was somehow found on a computer. Dominic performed a quiet, intimate scene about coming home to his wife after the Vietnam war, with a fire alarm blaring and cars going by on South Oxford Street. I kept thinking one of the actors would stop, one of the actors would say: actually, I'll see you in twenty minutes on stage...But in silent agreement, they simply kept doing the play. When boat puppets were called for, and a wind machine, the actors actually pretended to be boats, and made the sound of the wind. (I thought somehow that once you got your equity card, you refused on principle to ever make the sound of the wind again...but no, these actors made the sound of the wind). I was so moved that telling the story was more important to them than the fear of exposure. I suppose that's always the playwright's hope--that telling the story outweighs the very real fear of total public humiliation; but often there are things for actors to hide behind--costume changes, sound cues, beautifully painted drops, props, and the like. But on the steps of Lafayette church, they had nothing but each other, the audience, and the story. And for half an hour, I was as transfixed as I've ever been, remembering that theater is at its roots, some very brave people mutually consenting to a make believe world, with nothing but language to rest on.

After half an hour, we got the green light to go back inside the theater. The actors started from where they'd left off on the steps of the church, and finished the play. The evening reminded me of the roots of medieval theater, in which a small community with a very small budget put on a play with great humility. The miraculous is sometimes no more than, and no less than, believing that a person is a boat puppet under the night sky....I was very grateful to these actors, and to that audience, for consenting to the invisible with utter simplicity that night, and it will remain one of my favorite nights in the theater.
Wed, May 26, 2010 @ 3:50 AM
2. Pollo wrote:: Hi there, you should not be hvnaig any troubles, and we would love to have you use blip.tv please send me a note if you have any questions at any time dinaATblip.tv. And great blog/vlog! Dina
Mon, September 3, 2012 @ 2:48 PM
3. Vinoth wrote:: Hi there, you should not be hiavng any troubles, and we would love to have you use blip.tv please send me a note if you have any questions at any time dinaATblip.tv. And great blog/vlog! Dina
Wed, September 5, 2012 @ 4:54 PM

Add a New Comment

Your Name:

Your Email/URL (Optional):

Your Comment:

Enter the code you see below:
code

Comment Guidelines: No HTML is allowed. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Thanks.

Epic Theatre Ensemble