A Celebration of Self with a Touch of SadnessBy Lauren Yarger
Everyday Rapture is actress Sherie Rene Scott's autobiographical "psycho-sexual-spiritual journey on the rocky path that separates her mostly Mennonite past from her mostly Manhattan future."
It’s supposed to be a celebration, but it leaves me kind of sad. Both times I have seen it – last year Off-Broadway at Second Stage and this year on Broadway where it is Roundabout Theatre Company’s last-minute replacement for the canceled Lips Together Teeth Apart – the show has left me wanting to give the talented actress a hug and tell her that people apparently have misrepresented God to her along her journey (just as Jesus is misrepresented in the show’s video sequence from designer Darrel Maloney), but that he loves her.
That said, Scott has co-written (with Dick Scanlan) a script chock full of song (Marco Paguia, musical direction), dance (Michele Lynch, choreography) and humor performed on a set designed by Christine Jones that evokes thoughts of a cosmic connect-the-dots (lighting by Kevin Adams). Directed by Michael Mayer (who also helmed Spring Awakening and American Idiot), the production is slick and has moved pretty much as an intact redo of the Off-Broadway show (and hence the following review is much the same as the one written last year).
Backup singers Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe reprise their roles as does Eamon Foley as a young nerdy kids lip synching to a recording of Scott singing “My Strongest Suit” from the role she originated in Aida. This is the show’s most entertaining segment and Foley is a hoot.
A rabbi (or was it a Muslim or a Buddhist, she wonders) tells her to carry two opposing approaches to life written out on sheets of paper in both of her hip pockets so that both choices are available to her. They are "you are a speck of dust" and "the world was created for you." Her goal in life: "to be one with God while a lot of people clapped” so the idea of not having to choose between the two approaches appeals.
Torn between her desire from a very early age to be a star and a "half Mennonite" upbringing that frowns on prideful pursuits (the only cool thing about being Mennonite, she tells us, is that you’re supposed to be non-judgmental), Scott gets her first chance to perform for patients at a mental hospital.
“No matter what God said, I was going to modulate,” she says. A series of photos and mocking depictions of Jesus are projected on a screen while Scott sings “You Made Me Love You, I Didn’t want to Do it…”
Her cousin, Jerome, who shares her adoration of Judy Garland, tells Scott he thinks she has what it takes to make it big in show business. Fueled by his encouragement and disillusioned by hateful anti-gay protests by people from her church at Jerome’s funeral, Scott heads off to New York when it’s time for her Rumpsringa (a Mennonite tradition where those coming of age are allowed to experience life outside of the sheltered community for a year). She struggles to silence the internalized judgmental voices from her childhood that prevent her from “articulating her adult desires.”
In the city, she meets a street magician named Ray who gets her pregnant before she returns to Kansas (doing some magic tricks, Scott pops a balloon to much laughter to represent her lost virginity). She comes to a realization that keeping the two slips of paper in her pockets doesn’t allow her to avoid making a choice. “You do have to choose,” she says. “It’s either or. I chose life. My own.” She has an abortion.
Scott goes on to “live in her own song” and to achieve success on Broadway in some “semi-starring” roles. She reaches out to the awkward boy lip synching on You Tube. She becomes increasingly frustrated, however, when her attempts to be nice to the boy result in his refusal to believe that the person contacting him via email really is the Broadway star.
Through the course of her journey, Scott worships Jesus, Judy Garland and Fred Rogers (of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood), then finally her young son’s luck. She discourages his search for a four-leaf clover because she doesn’t believe in luck -- that people make their own luck – until he finds one on his first attempt. She takes this as a sign that her son is lucky and when the family cat eats the clover, she almost strangles the animal in a desperate attempt to save the luck so her son won’t have to be a speck of dust.
She concludes with thoughts about how the Mennonites always taught she should be prepared for the Rapture but she has found, instead, that by embracing a world created for her, she experiences a rapture every day.
“May your Rumspringa last forever,” she says.
It’s her celebratory conclusion, but the show has more of a sad feeling of someone looking for justification and approval to me.
Everyday Rapture is actress Sherie Rene Scott's autobiographical "psycho-sexual-spiritual journey on the rocky path that separates her mostly Mennonite past from her mostly Manhattan future."
It’s supposed to be a celebration, but it leaves me kind of sad. Both times I have seen it – last year Off-Broadway at Second Stage and this year on Broadway where it is Roundabout Theatre Company’s last-minute replacement for the canceled Lips Together Teeth Apart – the show has left me wanting to give the talented actress a hug and tell her that people apparently have misrepresented God to her along her journey (just as Jesus is misrepresented in the show’s video sequence from designer Darrel Maloney), but that he loves her.
That said, Scott has co-written (with Dick Scanlan) a script chock full of song (Marco Paguia, musical direction), dance (Michele Lynch, choreography) and humor performed on a set designed by Christine Jones that evokes thoughts of a cosmic connect-the-dots (lighting by Kevin Adams). Directed by Michael Mayer (who also helmed Spring Awakening and American Idiot), the production is slick and has moved pretty much as an intact redo of the Off-Broadway show (and hence the following review is much the same as the one written last year).
Backup singers Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe reprise their roles as does Eamon Foley as a young nerdy kids lip synching to a recording of Scott singing “My Strongest Suit” from the role she originated in Aida. This is the show’s most entertaining segment and Foley is a hoot.
A rabbi (or was it a Muslim or a Buddhist, she wonders) tells her to carry two opposing approaches to life written out on sheets of paper in both of her hip pockets so that both choices are available to her. They are "you are a speck of dust" and "the world was created for you." Her goal in life: "to be one with God while a lot of people clapped” so the idea of not having to choose between the two approaches appeals.
Torn between her desire from a very early age to be a star and a "half Mennonite" upbringing that frowns on prideful pursuits (the only cool thing about being Mennonite, she tells us, is that you’re supposed to be non-judgmental), Scott gets her first chance to perform for patients at a mental hospital.
“No matter what God said, I was going to modulate,” she says. A series of photos and mocking depictions of Jesus are projected on a screen while Scott sings “You Made Me Love You, I Didn’t want to Do it…”
Her cousin, Jerome, who shares her adoration of Judy Garland, tells Scott he thinks she has what it takes to make it big in show business. Fueled by his encouragement and disillusioned by hateful anti-gay protests by people from her church at Jerome’s funeral, Scott heads off to New York when it’s time for her Rumpsringa (a Mennonite tradition where those coming of age are allowed to experience life outside of the sheltered community for a year). She struggles to silence the internalized judgmental voices from her childhood that prevent her from “articulating her adult desires.”
In the city, she meets a street magician named Ray who gets her pregnant before she returns to Kansas (doing some magic tricks, Scott pops a balloon to much laughter to represent her lost virginity). She comes to a realization that keeping the two slips of paper in her pockets doesn’t allow her to avoid making a choice. “You do have to choose,” she says. “It’s either or. I chose life. My own.” She has an abortion.
Scott goes on to “live in her own song” and to achieve success on Broadway in some “semi-starring” roles. She reaches out to the awkward boy lip synching on You Tube. She becomes increasingly frustrated, however, when her attempts to be nice to the boy result in his refusal to believe that the person contacting him via email really is the Broadway star.
Through the course of her journey, Scott worships Jesus, Judy Garland and Fred Rogers (of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood), then finally her young son’s luck. She discourages his search for a four-leaf clover because she doesn’t believe in luck -- that people make their own luck – until he finds one on his first attempt. She takes this as a sign that her son is lucky and when the family cat eats the clover, she almost strangles the animal in a desperate attempt to save the luck so her son won’t have to be a speck of dust.
She concludes with thoughts about how the Mennonites always taught she should be prepared for the Rapture but she has found, instead, that by embracing a world created for her, she experiences a rapture every day.
“May your Rumspringa last forever,” she says.
It’s her celebratory conclusion, but the show has more of a sad feeling of someone looking for justification and approval to me.
Everyday Rapture plays through July 11 at the American Airlines Theatre , 227 West 42nd St., NYC. For tickets, call (212) 719-1300.
Christians might also like to know:
• Simple magic tricks
• Irreverent photos of videos of Jesus and a mocking description of his death on the cross
• Abortion
I HATED it and would have left if I hadn't been in the middle of a row. I found it to be self-serving and offensive.
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