At the Ivy: Exposing the Nastiest Side of Fundamentalism
By Frederik Sisa @ 3:00 PM February 15, 2008
Mugshot - Frédérik Sisa
The
program for Carnage, A Comedy – the latest not-to-be-missed
production put on by the Actor’s Gang at the Ivy Substation – is accompanied by
reprinted news articles on the private military contractor (read: mercenary)
Blackwater. It may seem like an incongruous briefing given that Carnage is a satire on right-wing Christian
evangelism, until one reads about how Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, is not
only a former Navy Seal, but part of a very wealthy, Republican, right-wing
Christian familywith ties to the Bush
administration. Even considering the controversy surrounding Blackwater, from
its no-bid contracts to the Fallujah outrage, the link between Blackwater and
the play’s focus may seem a bit tenuous. War profiteering has been around
longer than Erik Prince and greed, that familiar base motivation unrestrained
by conscience, has long been the rule-of-thumb for explaining it. Yet, Prince’s
relationship to such groups as Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defense
Fund does raise a few questions as to the rationale behind Blackwater’s
existence and operations. And while Carnage is not about Blackwater per se –
the play was originally written and performed in 1987 – the issue of the
Religious Right’s character, and how it has come to influence a political
culture that makes companies like Blackwater possible, very much is. Carnage is a tale, with very sharp teeth,
of the transformation of Christian evangelism from good old-fashioned, cute ‘n
cuddly hucksterism to something sinister, angry and all too political – the
modern Religious Right.
And
the Religious Right is scary, not only because of its poisoned ideology,but also because it has been so successful in infiltration our common culture
that people like Ann Coulter can write, with utter impunity, contemptible
things like, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert
them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only
Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed
civilians. That's war. And this is war.”
Cutting-Edge, Socially Conscious Theatre
As
with the rest of the Actor’s Gang productions, the revival of Carnage represents an embrace of socially
conscious theatre’s cutting-edge. Setting aside the prescience of co-writers
Tim Robbins and Adam Simon, Carnage is both a critical lampooning and a
critical lesson on one of the most important topics facing the US, even the
world, today: Religious fundamentalism of all varieties. And it is funny. Carnage is plenty humourous – until the end
when, innocence lost, we come to realize that the good ol’ days are just that,
old. Suddenly, a shock. Laughter becomes poignancy, amusement becomes terror.
Anchoring
Carnage is
V.J. Foster, in a performance of almost frightening intensity. As the charming
Rev. Cotton Slocum, from the used car sales method of preaching, he represents
old school evangelism. Fire, brimstone, hope, salvation and lots of donations
from willing viewers caught up in a message of the rapture and humanity’s
impending last days on earth. Much of the play’s humour comes from Slocum
teaching his heir apparent, Tack, the tricks of the trade; the rest comes from
the general nature of televangelism and preaching. From a strangely unsettling,
advice-dispensing rabbit puppet named Foo-Foo to a cutesy singing couple, Carnage offers the rare parody that avoids
the easy, cheap shots of a sketch comedy and delivers something clever,
insightful and accompanied by meaningful drama.
But as enjoyable as the Rev. Slocum’s hijinks are, it can’t last forever and, sure enough, a tragic accident turns Slocum from a high-roller to a street prophet, with all the mad baggage that comes with it. This is Slocum at his most poignant, most sympathetic and most drastically different from the man who takes over the God’s Happy Acres ministry: Tack, the CIA spook whose wartime experiences take his interpretation of his Christianity in horrific directions. Gone are the happy songs and down-home folksy charm. Gone is the inoffensive (by comparison) con game of selling spiritual salvation for money. Instead, God’s Happy Acres could be called God’s Stormtrooper Barracks, a world of austere white uniforms, oppressive symbolism and fiery crusading rhetoric dominated metaphors of war and bloodshed. If Foster is loveable and sympathetic in his intensity, Justin Zsebe offers an equal and opposite intensity in the form of Tack’s charismatic, terrifying anger.
Demonstrating
the play’s dramatic sophistication is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the
play, a subplot involving Dot (Stephanie Carrie), a housewife and devoted
Christian in the mold of Sloakum’s Optimistic Pentecostal, and her husband
Ralph (Chris Schultz), a drunk wife-beater who longs to be a soldier for God. In the microcosm of family dynamics, we have the contest between Sloakum’s
ministry and Tack’s ministry writ small. Small, yet powerful enough so that the
play’s final scenes succeed, almost shockingly, in breaking hearts. That
glimmer of hope, the one refutation of the excess of the Religious Right, lies
in the view that people don’t have to choose hate and anger disguised as
self-righteous religion, but can make a better choice.
From
the moment we walk in the back of the theatre through an elaborate “revival”
tent that sets the mood, to the dimming of the lights on a Sibyl
Wickersheimer’s big yet simultaneously humble set, Carnage weaves some of that magic unique to
theatres. It’s productions like these, the kind that brings pleasure in a
stellar cast’s performances and intellectual satisfaction in the post-show
dissection, that make me love theatre all the more.
