I am on a film set, working; there is a catering tent (like Harrod's Food Hall, but smaller) where the tea is plentiful and good. There is also a Cathedral set, and an airstrip. A small turbo-prop lands, a little stairway is wheeled to the door, and out comes Elvis, who sees me, and turns to English actor Bernard Hill. "Look! There's Laurel!", he says, and they smile big bright sunrise smiles, and come down the stairs.
Elvis looks great. He is older, of course, as he should be, and a little stout, but healthy and happy, and full of life and laughter. We've been friends ever since Bernard first introduced us.
Now, my babysitters were Elvis fans. I was a little too young, and then my family moved across the Atlantic to Solihull, England, and it wasn't until the Beatles were on the telly there in 1962 that pop music came into my life. I've dreamed of Paul McCartney many times over the decades since then, but this is Elvis' first appearance. What a great guy he turns out to be!
While with the Transfer, I did a lot of TV, but I've only been on one film set as a performer (rather than a visitor), and only for a day. Cornelia Moore, director of Camilla Dickinson (a screen adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel, Camilla), called me to be a nightclub singer in a scene, and so off I flew to Spokane, WA, for a day of location shooting. As soon as I arrived on set, I felt that "thing", that magic, in cast and crew. Shared purpose, connection, speaking a common language - it was in the air. And at the end of that one day, when I heard "that's a wrap for Laurel Massé", I was knocked over by a wave of sadness. Time to go? Already? Oh. I wanted to stay, to be part of the story, because of that "thing".
I am a sucker for that thing. It is what I loved about doing King Lear with Project Rushmore Theatre Company. It's what I love about Ashokan, and why I would often rather see a band in rehearsal than in performance. It's the shared purpose, the collaboration; it's a participation in the Beloved Community, and it's the story we tell.
Here's an image that gives the sense of what I am talking about. It's The Quilting Bee, by Grandma Moses. In this painting, every stitch is a story. Elvis has not yet arrived...
And here is a link to an article about Cornelia, in which she talks about her film, her writing, and her godmother.
My title is a Greek word that turns up fairly often - 44 times - in New Testament. As you can guess, it is the source of the words scandal and scandalize, and it means stumbling block, something one trips over, something that causes one to fall. These things happen in life, but no one should be placing the stones so as to cause a fall, as Jesus said. "Woe to the world because of stumbling
blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to
the one by whom the stumbling block comes!" (Matthew 18:7). Paul wrote, in his letter to the Romans, "Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another,
but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance
in the way of another... Let us then pursue what makes for peace and mutual edification." (Romans 14:13,19)
When two women from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot were tried and sentenced for an activist action in a church (or committing sacrilege in a church, depending on one's point of view), I became involved in an online discussion led by a member of a Christian religious order. I felt that person's position against the women of the band, even in light of the pain and anger the action had caused, was extremely harsh, and I posted a comment questioning that stance. We back and forthed a little bit, chapter-and-versing, but in the end, I was smacked down by Thomas Aquinas. Oof! Serves me right, perhaps, for messing with [a person of unnamed gender who is a member of an unnamed religious order of an unnamed denomination].
About a month has passed, and now a conflagration triggered by insults to the founder of Islam and his followers has caused riots, and killed our ambassador to Libya, along with several members of the embassy staff. These deaths are not justifiable in any way. They are heartbreaking. Information currently suggests that the protests were used by outside agents to cover the murders of the ambassador and embassy personnel. I am trying to separate the killings done by a few from the anger displayed by so many, across several countries.
If Pussy Riot's action was sacrilegious, it seems to me that the film Innocence of Muslims is, too. If we are to accept that churchgoers were hurt and scandalized when the punk band disrupted the sacred service, how can we not see that devout Muslims would be outraged by this film?
Someone - I think it may have been Fran Lebowitz - once wrote, "Your freedom to wear a lime-green polyester pantsuit ends where it meets my eye." There are limits, even for we Americans. I have heard people say that though the film is regrettable, we have freedom of speech. Yes, we do. Here. If we stay within our own borders. But elsewhere, where American law does not apply, we have to abide by the laws and customs of the country we are in. Even at home, we have to be prepared to accept the consequences of that free speech. In Muslim cultures, one does not make a picture of or a joke about the Prophet. I am sorry to have to say this, but really, if a five-year old can figure out that it's unwise to pull the kitty's tail, can't alleged adults predict that riots and violence will be the result of such "free speech"? That may someday change, but we are not the ones to force that change.
There is another definition of skandalon: the movable stick that triggers a trap, the stick that has to be carefully and deliberately set in order for the trap to function.
Someone made a movie defaming the prophet Muhammed. I have read it was intended to be a Christian evangelization tool. Most people smart enough to make a movie are probably too smart to have made such a colossal misjudgement, but it didn't matter much, because only about ten people ever saw the film prior to now. So who really decided it would be a good idea to release such a film, and to post a trailer on YouTube at this particular time? And who funded it? $5,000,000 went into that film. Instead of criticizing the quality of the production, why are we not asking who put up the money? Because it's not that easy to find that kind of money. If five million dollars grew on every tree, I would have planted an orchard, and be having a very different life right now.
Most Christians agree that it is, at the very least, bad manners to show blatant disrespect to Jesus Christ. Responses vary from person to person. Grief. Rage. A shrug. A prayer. But there is always a reaction. So what, then, makes it OK to similarly disrespect Muhammed?
Nothing. It is not OK. And we misrepresent the God of love we profess to follow when we allow it to happen in His name.
I don't know what the religious I conversed with last month might say about what happened and is happening in Libya, Tunisia, Sudan. And Aquinas? I have not studied his work much, so I don't know that, either. But I do know this: three months before his death, Aquinas, while serving at Mass, had a mystical experience that led him to say, "All that I have written seems like straw compared to what has been revealed to me."
A friend posted a YouTube clip on Facebook, and because the friend is a thoughtful and interesting person in real life - as opposed to Facebook life - I watched the clip. It was about living in a tiny apartment. A very tiny apartment, about 100 square feet. Though the tenant had rid herself of a lot of possessions to live there, the space still seemed stuffed with... well, stuff, which made it seem even smaller. But it was intriguing nonetheless. After I saw that video, I did what we so often do: followed the video breadcrumbs farther and longer than I'd intended. Facebook and YouTube are forms of alien abduction. I watched several more films about small-space living, and continued to think about that after I had put the laptop to bed for the night.
I have moved many times, m-a-a-a-a-a-ny times, and have sampled a lot of different styles of dwellings. They've included a 32-room mansion in Connecticut and a 12x60 1970s mobile home in upstate NY, a duplex apartment in a 1920s Spanish-style building in the Hollywood hills, and an art-deco apartment near Paris's Bois de Boulogne. And a tent, oh boy, I never forget the tent. And there have been so many more that I almost feel a little immoral. Each space has taught me something, usually about light. Some were too bright, some too dark, only two or three just right. Apparently, I am a very Goldilocks of photosensitivity. And to each space, I have brought my most-loved stuff, whether it was a favorite plastic horsie (then) or a wicker chair (now).
I currently live in a studio apartment that, ever since I've watched those videos, seems enormous. It's a little on the dim side on the light scale, and I will have to remember to avoid lower-floor apartments in courtyard buildings in the future, because even on the brightest blue-sky days, the sunlight is all up there and out there but never in here. However, it is bright enough for full-shade plants, and the ones I have are doing well. I have some decent furniture, and artwork and books and objects that I like to look at, and it is a peaceful and spacious living space. But if I had less space, it would be too much stuff, just like in that first video I watched.
Which had me wondering: does one measure the too-muchness of the stuff by the available space, or by the life lived? Does a bigger life need more things, or more room? And if it is more room, does that imply more space, or less stuff?
I once lived with a man who continually insisted there was too much stuff in our home, but he always meant my stuff, and never his own. Eventually I discarded his particular sense of the scale (but not soon enough. I still miss my amber bracelet. Squawk! Flap! Wait..let me smooth my feathers back down.... There. That's better. Sorry.).
How much is too much?
This is - or should be - the great American question, because, as Americans, most of us have a quite a lot, and some very few of us have almost all of that. But perhaps we can't tell what's too much till we know how much is enough.
When I compare what I have with what my neighbors have, I can feel hungry for more. That assumes neighbor means the folks next door, or in the corner office, or perhaps other performers with busier schedules.
What happens when I define neighbor as everybody? As the person down the street whose pension disappeared, and can now buy food or heating fuel, but not both. And the woman who is working in a clandestine sweat shop. Or the kid with Irlen syndrome who, for lack of a diagnosis and a piece of colored plastic film might not learn to read. Those folks living in New Orleans who saw their moment of national attention pass by, and are living in a city still struggling to rebuild. The exhausted teacher whose job is on the line. The exhausted Iraq veteran who can't find a job at all. The banker who is mourning her lost integrity. The lottery winner who is contemplating suicide.
Now it's starting to look like I have a lot. How much do I have? becomes How much do I need?
But there is a scarier question, yes? Oh yes.
How much can I give?
In an article in The New York Times this morning, theater writer Ben Brantley caught my attention.Writing about showstoppers, he divided them into two types: the piece (scene, line, song, etc.) so beautifully performed that the audience erupts into bravas and bravos and applause, and the glitch that destroys the illusion being created on the stage. In the latter category, he referred, for the most part, to big glitches like curtains falling on actors heads, scenes having to be restarted because an actor has gone up beyond recovery, and most of Spiderman.
But there is also the personal-sized showstopper. That's the thing you notice that may not affect anyone else in the audience, the mistake that tears you out of suspension of disbelief so fast that you get the bends. These can be tiny, but when we notice them, we are made more aware than we want to be that "it's only a paper moon hanging over a cardboard sea". I am delighted to share a few of these little cuties with you.
In 1992, maidens' hearts went all a-flutter watching Daniel Day Lewis portray Nathaniel (Hawkeye) on film in The Last of the Mohicans. In the novel, by James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel was named Natty Bumppo. The screenplay didn't use that name, but it didn't bother me. Darlin' Dan is not really a Bumppo, is he? Nathaniel racing through a raging battle to his true love's rescue? Happy to believe it. But in an earlier scene, Cora (played by Madeleine Stowe), traveling near Lake George, in the Adirondack Mountains, peers into the woods and sees a mountain lion. That's plausible. Though rare, there are catamount sightings up north even today. But to see the great cat, she has to look through some leafy branches, and they are rhododendron branches, with rhododendron leaves.
I lived in the Adirondacks for twelve years, and never saw rhododendrons in the woods. The climate is probably too harsh. In that split-second of plant recognition, I was suddenly not in the Adirondack woods, but rather watching a movie, falling from being in the story onto the hard ground of merely watching the story. I really like Daniel Day Lewis, so I managed to get back on my horse of belief, and ride along for the rest of the movie. This was a tiny and personal stumbling block that I doubt many other people in the cinema that day noticed.
A similar thing happened at a performance of the recent revival of Guys and Dolls. I had two bouts of the bends at that show. The music was intolerably loud, and came from the wrong place. Though the actors were in front of me, singing on the stage, their voices were coming from above and to my right. Very loudly, too - HEY! did I mention that? - and many audience members spent the intermission complaining about the volume. But that was not the little personal thing. When Sky Masterson visits Sister Sarah Brown at the Save-a-Soul Mission, and surprises her by quoting scripture, they have a small disagreement about the chapter and verse provenance. In this production, the actress playing Sarah picked up a Bible from atop a battered lectern or an equally battered piano (can't remember), to look up the verse, and the Bible she picked up was brand-spankin' new, its gilt-edged pages shining in the lights. It was not scuffed, it did not flop in her hands. If you look at any TV evangelist, or, for that matter, any Christian who spends a lot of time reading the Word, you will virtually never see a shiny pristine Good Book in their hands. Their books are well-used, and truly battered, and if the prop Bible had to be run over by a car a couple of times to get the look right, I wish it had have been done. Because when I saw it, I was forced to remember I was watching a show, that the mission was a stage-set, and that the players were saying lines.
This, added to my already-existing discomfort with the sound, prevented that particular performance of one of the best musicals ever written from regaining my trust. I now was watching, not feeling, and certainly not believing.
There have been other examples - the movie sequence of the pretty collie herding sheep, which, given the dog's clearly visible hip problems it actually could never do, the passionate film cellist whose fingering and bowing would never result in what I am hearing, the Cole Porter music in the background of a period piece that is recorded in a way that didn't exist in that period, and sung in an inauthentic style. All these things distress me because of what I already know: canine anatomy (I trained dogs), cello technique (I played cello in my teens), how to sing Cole Porter (it is part of my life's work). I am certain that, based on their life experience and expertise, other folks notice other things.
As in theater, so too in church. Everybody there wants to believe. But sometimes we can't, and the reasons can seem very small, and usually have to do with some kind of personally-observed dissonance akin to the rhododendron leaves and Cole Porter's autotuning. Add enough small reasons together over time, though, and there are going to be disgruntled observers where once there were believers, and empty seats where once there were full houses, all for want of a little more attention to detail.
Recent Comments