Saturday, September 22, 2018

Opting Out of Society's Dogma Whistles

Based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play, Pygmalion, My Fair Lady includes a delightful scene in which Professor Henry Higgins and Colonel Pickering take Eliza Doolittle out for a trial run at the Ascot Races. As Higgins tries to reassure his mother that nothing could possibly go wrong with taking a flower girl out of her element and introducing her to high society, he says:
"I've taught her to speak properly and she has strict orders as to her behavior. She's to keep to two subjects: the weather and everybody's health, and not just let herself go on things in general. Help her along, darling, and you'll be quite safe."

Once upon a time and not so very long ago, a safe tactic to prevent social discomfort was to avoid any references to politics and/or religion in polite conversation. Nowadays, one almost has to duck and run to avoid these topics.

In a society which is supposed to adhere to a strict separation of church and state, I've watched in wonder as conservative politicians and religious leaders have blamed hurricanes, floods, financial disasters, pandemics, and gun violence on "the gays." I've enjoyed some amount of schadenfreude from seeing famously homophobic politicians arrested for sex trafficking, having gay sex with minors, and soliciting blowjobs in airport restrooms. Nor have I been the least bit surprised to see the Catholic Church accused of covering up rampant pedophilia within its ranks while moving predatory priests from one diocese to another in order to escape the long arm of the law.

After listening to periodic news reports of parents who killed their children because "God told them to do it" or people intent on riding out a dangerous hurricane because "God will take care of us," I've come to agree with Karl Marx, who wrote that:
“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man (state, society). This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.”
Photograph of Karl Marx (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”

Karl Marx rightly stresses that religion and faith are man-made phenomena, acquired the same way people in England learn how to drive on the left side of the road and people in America learn how to drive on the right side of the road. With so many politicians and so-called faith leaders basing secular decisions on their religious learning, any atheist watching their behavior is quick to question whether these people have been bribed, become befuddled, or simply brainwashed. 
Having been raised in a family that endorsed science and logic rather than superstition and faith, I've learned how organized religion has become a far more destructive force throughout history than the church would have its followers believe. From countless deaths due to acts of violence encouraged by religious fundamentalism (the Crusades, honor killings, ISIS, and Al Queda) to the costly church scandals in so many cities, the hypocrisy of organized religion has become inescapable. Perhaps that's why I've occasionally attempted to kill a few Christians with kindness by simply smiling and saying "Hi, there. My name's George. I'm a happy, healthy, Jewish homosexual atheist. Can I shake your hand?"


While breaking free from the rigid constructs of patriarchal societies and religious dogma can be exhilarating, it can also be dangerous. Both Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) struggled against powerful church officials to prove that the earth revolved around the sun rather than accepting the conventional wisdom that the sun revolved around the earth. Today's science geeks disprove long-held assumptions and post their results on YouTube. Consider the following two videos by Destin Sandlin from Smarter Every Day and Dr. Derek Muller from Veritasium which were filmed to explain the Coriolis effect.




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Crowded Fire Theater is currently presenting the Bay area premiere of Young Jean Lee's one-hour play entitled Church (2007) as part of a tandem production with the Oakland School For The Arts. In addition to sharing their research and discussing conceptual approaches together, both casts have worked in a combined rehearsal process at the table as well as to develop choreography and song for their productions. As Matthew Travisano (who directs the OSFA staging) notes:
“The history of the world is the history of religions being misunderstood when they were founded and then turning around to condemn those who don’t agree with them. Lee chose Christianity as the lens for her play about faith knowing that it would provoke. Some will recognize the language of revelation as something energizing, some will be uncomfortable, some will not know what to feel. Perhaps more provocative than anything is her choice to write a play to which she couldn’t predict the audience’s reaction because she isn’t aiming for one in particular. She’s aiming for yours.”

Upon entering Crowded Fire's performance space at Potrero Stage, one is greeted by a relatively empty playing area which holds a podium and two benches. Hanging from above are three pieces of scenery, each containing a series of textured glass-like panels. As the play begins, a man's voice starts speaking in the darkness, beginning with a series of platitudes and proceeding to the kind of mixed messages whose absurdity invokes giggles from different parts of the audience. It's a beautiful piece of satirical writing, which makes it clear that Lee is not interested in toeing the line.

Lawrence Radecker, Jordan Maria Don, and Nkechi Emeruwa
in a scene from Church (Photo by: Hillary Goldel)

Working on Randy Wong-Westbrooke's unit set along with Alice Ruiz's costumes, James Ard's sound design, Min Kahng's music direction, and choreography by Mark Allen Davis, CFT’s artistic director, Mina Morita, has directed the production in a way that coats the mixed messages in each Reverend's soothing sermon with the kind of benignly reassuring sense of affirmation that appeals to people who want easy solutions to their questions about life. A dance sequence spreads the exuberance and joy of feeling uplifted without any hints of how easily religion can inspire cult-like behavior. As Morita notes:
“Each time I am graced with an opportunity to work inside of Young Jean’s plays my framework of thought is transformed. Her work requires you to share your own truth at the table, to interrogate your assumptions, and to complicate them. She understands that assumptions can be dangerous and polarizing, especially those surrounding faith -- certainly one of the deepest divisions in this country is quietly lying along religious lines. In fact, faith could be viewed as one of the most controversial themes of our shared lives. We hardly ever talk about faith and spirituality in mixed company. It is so deeply personal because it is emotionally tied to our family dynamics and histories as well as to our sense of belonging. It is also profoundly tied to dynamics of power.”
“Every time I’m in Lee's work, I learn so much about myself and others and the world. It drastically changes my frame of association to whatever that topic is -- whether it’s mortality, or consumption of bodies or stereotypes, or self-hate, or spirituality and faith. It’s been eye-opening to me to think about how deeply personal and potentially controversial this piece is going to be because we don’t talk about religion in a public sphere unless we’re with like-minded people. Everyone is so dramatically different in terms of family history, a moral stance in the world, and how they were nurtured into thinking and valuing things in a certain way or devaluing them or feeling ostracized, alienated, or persecuted. As opposed to some other topics that are challenging and discussed more openly (especially in the theatre), we don’t talk about religion.”
Jordan Maria Don, Alison Whismore, and Nkechi Emeruwa
in a scene from Church (Photo by: Hillary Goldel)

Although many Americans like to brag about their Christianity and family values, two topics they don't like to discuss are atheism and freedom from religion. As I sat through a performance of Church, I was continually reminded how, as an atheist, the presence of God and the power of faith are not my default settings. In a perverse way, listening to Young Jean Lee's text clarified how a lifetime of preaching and emotional manipulation by religious figures makes too many people easy marks for con men like Donald Trump as well as televangelists, hypocrites, and charlatans like Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, and Jim Bakker.


Crowded Fire's four-actor ensemble (Jordan María Don, Nkechi Emeruwa, Lawrence Radecker, and Alison Whismore) gave thoroughly committed performances as traveling Reverends speaking to a new congregation. However, rather than being moved by the spirit of their sermons, I found myself thinking back to the cold, winter day when I visited two friends from summer camp following a blizzard in Rhode Island. Because they were Catholic, I accompanied them to church on Sunday morning where, rather than listening to that morning's sermon, I was much more focused on trying to figure out the location of the microphones and speakers.

Jordan Maria Don, Lawrence Radecker, Nkechi Emeruwa,
and Alison Whismore in a scene from Church
(Photo by: Hillary Goldel)

Performances of Church continue through October 6 at the Potrero Stage (click here for tickets). A subsequent production of Church by the Oakland School for the Arts School of Theatre will be staged from October 24-27 at Historic Sweets Ballroom. If you can't get to a live performance in the Bay area, you can watch a video of the New York production of Church by clicking here.
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