By Lauren Yarger
She's angry and bitter. Afraid and cautious. She's not the virginal, almost-goddess to whom people still pray (especially if you're Catholic) and we get the impression that she doesn't pray much herself.
She's Mary, the mother of Jesus -- or at least how a 21st-Century writer and a talented actress want us to see her. The "truth should be spoken at least once in the world" The Testament of Mary's slogan screams at us, as though what we know about Mary, primarily from the bible, is totally in error.
Fiona Shaw, in a powerful and demanding solo performance, takes on the character created by Colm Toibin, adapted for the Broadway stage from his bestselling novella of the same name. Audiences entering the Walter Kerr Theatre are invited up on stage prior to the performance where various props and a live vulture are on display. Suddenly, Shaw walks out and takes a seat inside a glass room where candles have been placed almost in an altar-like fashion at her feet. The crowds filing up onto stage look like a procession in church on their way to view a relic or something (lighting designed by Jennifer Tipton highlights arches in the theater's ceiling to give a cathedral effect.)
But if anyone feels a stirring of the divine, a kinship with the blue-robed Mary that one might expect to find shining in a museum painting, the image is quickly stripped away -- stage hands obtrusively come out and dismantle the glass room (thankfully taking the vulture with them) and Mary sheds her royal robes to reveal a black tunic over leggings and boots. And the puzzling staging (what time period is this? How long ago did the crucifixion take place?) of the 90-minute soliloquy begins.
Smoking cigarettes taken from a pocket in a jacket that looks like it was bought in an Army surplus store (Ann Roth designs the costumes), Mary tells us she is being watched after the crucifixion and visitors (we assume that they are apostles, though she doesn't identify them) want to record her words and memories to promulgate their version of how and why her son was put to death. They aren't interested in the truth.
She hasn't slept much and still can't even mention Jesus' name, she tells us. She fears that if she utters it "something inside me will break." Not only was she estranged from Jesus during his ministry, denying that she was one of his followers, but she also left him to die alone on the cross. She snuck away because she feared for her own life, she says. The stress eats away at her much like that vulture might if given a chance and she constantly paces around the stage. Poorly directed by Deborah Warner, she busies herself endlessly with senseless, distracting tasks like shifting a ladder around, moving barbed wire, chopping a fish or constantly splashing water on herself from a modern spigot, which spills into a sort of pool or well.
More unnecessary movement is added with scrims and sections of backdropping that move and reveal shades of other colored backgrounds (Tom Pye designs the set). The tall expanse dwarfs Mary while keeping focus on a lone white tree limb upstage with what looks like a bird -- hopefully not that live vulture -- perched on a wagon wheel on top. Most of the action takes place in dim lighting and is accented by moody sounds and original music by Mel Mercer.
She's not happy, this Mary, and she can't contain her disappointment in Jesus, who became rather haughty in his fame and who hung out with a bunch of "misfits." She discounts some of his miracles, bringing into question whether wine already was in the casks at the wedding at Cana. She implies that Jesus was cruel in waking Lazarus from the dead since his friend only continued to suffer horribly after being called forth from the tomb. She depicts Lazarus' sister Martha as some sort of brainwashed zealot.
The main idea of Toibin's fable is that we're supposed to relate to Mary as a real woman, especially as a mother who is grieving. I can go there with him on that. Mary was a real woman -- not some sinless goddess -- and she certainly would have grieved the loss of her son. She's an inspiring figure and we don't know enough about her and I would like to know more. The play's best moment, in fact, comes when Mary recounts first learning that her son would be crucified. She recalls a crucifixion she once witnessed. As the memory of that long-ago horror sharpens, so does her understanding of what will happen to her son and Shaw skillfully conveys the raw terror and the accompanying suffering and grief of a mother unable to help her child. She physically draws into a pose that shows that she is being crucified as well. Yes, it could have happened just like that. It's a beautiful scene. I wish they'd all been like that.
Where Toibin left me (and Mary, some might argue) behind on this journey is when he walked down a dark path and asked us to leave behind everything we know about Mary -- and Jesus for that matter. Mary implies that Jesus was no immaculate conception. She says that since she wasn't there (and therefore could hardly have inspired a Pietà) she doesn't know whether he was buried after dying on the cross, implying that the tomb might have been empty all along. She says stories of his resurrection were birthed when she and Mary (Lazarus' other sister) somehow had the exact same dream about Jesus appearing to them. A coincidence that got recorded and blown out of all proportion, it seems.
Toibin's play starts at the end, however. There is no room for reinventing the beginning. The only reason we can join Mary at this point in her life is because we know the story of her son's life and death as told in the bible an other historical writings that survive from the time. Without that "backstory," we would have no idea who this woman is or what she is talking about. So to throw away what we know just because this Mary smokes, drinks and gets naked (yes, Shaw ends up completely nude in the attempt to "strip bare" this character), requires having more faith in the playwright and his imagination than in eyewitness accounts, abundant early first-century accounts and many Messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus (and by no one else in history). Pretty good for someone stupid enough to hang out with a bunch of misfits (at least one of whom was his brother and also Mary's kid. Did she forget that?)..... Sorry, it's not believable and neither is that story about two people having the exact same dream.
Despite all that, The Testament of Mary has received Tony and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play this season.Shaw is nominated in the Outstanding Solo Performance category for the Outer Critics Circle Awards. It's deserved. She gives a strong performance and imbues Mary with a female perspective missing in the novella, where Toibin's male voice isn't disguised in character's first person narrative.
Mary only gets to tell her story a few more times on Broadway, however. The show, originally scheduled to run through June 16, has announced an early closing of its run this Sunday. For information and tickets: http://www.testamentonbroadway.com/.
Christians might also like to know:
-- Show posts a Mature advisory
-- Nudity
