Taking It on Faith
Director Kimberly Senior talks with Playwright Keith Bunin about the Church, Gnostic Gospels and how to avoid preaching to the choir.
Suddenly, first rehearsal — where our amazing cast of actors,
talented designers and committed staff are all in one room for the first time
— is right around the corner! Playwright Keith Bunin has been sharing
tidbits with me for many months, and he and I made the time for one more chat
before we dive in. Here’s just a little of our conversation:
Kimberly Senior: I’ll start with something that’s been coming up a lot throughout the design process. Although the play would certainly be considered “realism” and grounded in the real world, there are certainly some magical or otherworldly moments as well. What was your intention there?
Keith Bunin: I understand exactly what you’re saying. It’s a tricky balance — it’s real people looking for spiritual and eternal transcendence, in the middle of a real world. It’s a metaphorical thing in the play. One of the definite challenges of writing a play about religion or spirituality is the urge to impose a deus ex machina on it. It may seem to the characters that these are tremendous great miracles or coincidences but the play isn’t saying that anything is happening that wouldn’t actually be happening. So there’s a balance there. It’s both. How does the quest for spiritual/religious/transcendent meaning affect the way in which we deal with…earthly things. Things that we struggle with in our lives day to day.
KS: Why did you choose the Episcopal Church as a frame for the play?
KB: I have a poly-religious
background; my father is ½ Jewish, my mother was raised Catholic but
she left the Catholic Church before I was born and raised my sister and me in
the Episcopal church until I was 14, basically until I was confirmed. Coincidentally,
almost immediately after that, I started going to a Quaker school, and it was
my first experience with a liberal religious experience in a faith- based community.
So that was a major influence on my spiritual development. When I started working
on this play I started with choosing things I had a background in. The Episcopal
Church I remember from my childhood, and even the one today, is very much about
intellectual rigor. There are also both conservative and liberal elements to
it. I could see Hannah being there.
KS: Yes! Speaking of Hannah, her research and writing on the Gnostic Gospels
is what triggers the actions of the play. What drew you to the Gospels?
KB: There’s a great deal of work being done about the early voices of Christianity — what happened for it to become a religion, rather than a series of small cults. They had to start suppressing voices so there weren’t too many versions of the story.
KS: I love the way you put that!
KB: You can actually look back and see how the religion was formed. And see these suppressed gospels. It becomes a way to understand: rather than looking at the Bible literally, you can see all these human beings trying to comprehend what they see as God. It’s an amazing struggle. It struck me as an amazing quest. Finding some kind of inherent truth behind dogma. Something interesting for Hannah to be doing. And again transcendence…
KS: It’s what all the characters are doing in the play. Searching for this truth.
KB: I think that’s right. Those things sort of became more and more clear to me. How to illuminate what they are looking for more and more spiritually.
KS: One of the things that Jason (Loewith) and I both find so exciting about your play is that there are gay characters but it’s not a “gay play”— meaning it’s not a play about being gay.
KB: You’re right, so many plays are about being gay. For most of us, our generation, it’s an important part of our lives but not the entire context. I had no particular interest in adding to the genre of gay plays. The relationship between these two men is not solely about that they’re gay. The fact that he’s gay is not the issue with his mother either. She’s okay with that.
KS: Not only did you take on the challenge of writing a play about religion, but you have written a play about religion in which there are gay characters and it’s not about how the church feels about their being gay.
KB: There’s only so much you can say now—people are generally tolerant. It’s not that interesting thematically. All I would be doing otherwise is preaching to the choir.
KS: Thanks so much, Keith. It’s been so illuminating for me.