Next takes leap
of faith with ‘Hushed’
By Mary Houlihan | CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Friday, September 7, 2007
In recent years, Evanston’s Next Theatre has built a reputation for staging works best described as “thinking man” plays. Riveting dramas by Caryl Churchill, Lynn Nottage and Bryony Lavery, which asked more questions than they answered, stuck with theater-goers long after the last bow.
Now Next adds Keith Bunin’s “The Busy World Is Hushed” to the list. In this play about family and faith, [playwright] Bunin debates the existence of God, the veracity of the Gospels and how faith is a process full of questions.
The story
Hannah (Peggy Roeder) is a minister and religious scholar with plans to write
a book about a recently discovered Gospel that she believes to be the earliest
ever written. She has a very troubled and fraught relationship with her son
Thomas (Erik Hellman) who, in reaction to his mother’s concern, lives
a life “completely off the map.” To help write the book, Hannah
hires Brandt (Dennis Grimes), a young academic who is going through his own
issues in terms of religion.
“Hannah has a very strong sense of faith but she also has a very rigorous mind,” Bunin said. “My interest in her was to create a character who was deeply spiritual while at the same time never dogmatic. She’s always questioning.”
The inspiration
Bunin had been thinking about the topic long before he began to write. His father
was raised Jewish, his mother was raised Catholic and Bunin was raised Episcopalian
(after his mother left the church) and attended a Quaker boarding school.
“I had this very polyglot religious upbringing,” Bunin said. “The school was my fist experience of a genuinely liberal and diverse Christian community. It had a huge emotional impact on me. A couple of years ago, I started thinking about it and began looking at a way to uncover this personal history and the history of religion that sort of formed me.”
The lesson
Bunin immersed himself in the Gospels of the New Testament and read Elaine Pagels’
writings on the Gnostic gospels, as well as Jack Miles’ Pulitzer Prize-winning
God: A Biography.
“The New Testament is an amazing piece of writing and literature,”
Bunin said. “It’s also a guide on how to live a decent life. I can’t
say I’ve come away from this with more or less faith. But the experience
has deepened the questions I’m asking of myself.”
The playwright
Bunin, 36, says he’s always been a writer but at first he never thought
of it as a career choice. It was while studying film production at New York
University that he realized it was the writing that really interested him. His
plays have included “The Credeaux Canvas” and “The World Over,”
and he is currently working on several screenplays. Bunin’s most recent
stage work was writing the book for “10 Million Miles,” a four person
chamber musical featuring the songs of singer-songwriter Patty Griffin. It debuted
to good reviews this summer Off-Broadway.