Not so virgin ‘Mary’ production condemned as blasphemous
A new Boston run of ‘The Testament of Mary,’ a one-woman show about Jesus’ last days, draws the ire of religious groups
Reporter at The Times of Israel
BOSTON — Although Irish author Colm Toibin’s “The Testament of Mary” has done well on European stages, the New World productions of his 90-minute Mary monologue are the ongoing target of Catholic fundamentalist groups’ animosity.
Toibin has said the monologue is “imagined,” but that claim has not deterred the activity of blasphemy police against the production, most recently in Boston. Even before the New Repertory Theatre staged a press preview of its new “Testament” production, the Pennsylvania-based America Needs Fatima organization lambasted the play’s “distortion” of the New Testament and Catholicism.
“Every Catholic and God-fearing American is disturbed by such blatant insensitivity to God and His Holy Mother,” according to a petition posted on the America Needs Fatima website in January. The theater received 30,000 signatures calling for the production’s cancellation, as well as a handful of calls, letters, and emails denouncing the show. The production, however, proceeded as planned.
The fiery feedback was hardly surprising, considering “Testament’s” rocky reception by religious groups since its 2013 Broadway debut run that was shorter than summer camp. And though officially cancelled for poor ticket sales, activists took credit for closing down the production.
“It is noteworthy that besides being written by an avowed homosexual, [the play] is being performed and directed by open lesbians, namely, Irish actress Fiona Shaw and Deborah Warner,” said Luiz Sérgio Solimeo of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (ATP), a leading opponent of the Broadway production, which — unlike the current Boston run — featured nudity.
According to ATP, the play’s Mary is a “narrow-minded, vulgar, egoistic and even idolatrous woman,” a Holy Mother who is “secretly a pagan worshiper of the hunting goddess Artemis.”
As a one-woman show about Jesus’ last days, “Testament” adds a female voice to the all-male Gospel club: that of Jesus Christ’s mother, “somebody who was deeply traumatized and very angry, and also sharp and also intelligent and also ready to defend herself if necessary,” according to Toibin.
In writing a monologue told from Mary’s post-traumatic perspective, Toibin knew he was “breaking glass,” as he said in an NPR interview.
“And yes, I was aware that the figure speaking was not the mild woman of the paintings, the imploring and very yielding woman that you see at the foot of the cross or that you hear about in the Gospels,” said Toibin, who said he bypassed issues of morality in favor of probing “the tone and texture of this woman’s voice on this particular day.”
Despite its speed-of-light Broadway run, “Testament” has since been staged in London and Barcelona, and Meryl Streep offered her voice for an audio recording. The current New Repertory Theatre production in Watertown, outside Boston, runs until the end of February.
Mary in contemporary culture
Though she’s been dead for 2,000 years, depictions of the Holy Mother continue on television and the stage, often mashed-up with pop culture.
Since 2014, “Jane the Virgin” has aired on The CW Television Network, featuring a Latina woman who becomes pregnant via “accidental” artificial insemination by her doctor. The Golden Globe award-winning show draws inspiration and pacing from the telenovela genre.
On March 20, Fox will air “The Passion,” a two-hour, live Palm Sunday musical produced by Dick Clark, with Trisha Yearwood as Mary. The Tyler Perry-hosted evening will film all over New Orleans, with musician Seal acting and live surprises. According to buzz, the religious romp will give the “High School Musical” treatment to long-revered Mary, even if, as in the case of “Testament,” some of her devotees say nay.
Bringing Mary from silence to blasphemy
Born in southeast Ireland in 1955, Toibin grew up with “a great deal of silence” in the home, and he was unable to read until age nine. Affected by a childhood stammer, Toibin has said his work “comes out of silence,” much like Mary’s harrowing testimony, given a full 20 years after Jesus’ death.
In addition to focusing on themes of gay identity and personal loss, Toibin is renowned for blending personal stories with Irish history. He works in austere conditions, sitting in a pain-inducing chair and writing by hand, according to the auteur.
The playwright’s Mary is a masochist, and tormented by the question, “was it worth it?” She cunningly defends herself against bandits, goes undercover to spy on her son, and draws the wrath of Jesus’ disciples for disbelieving his miracles.
This is not the Mary of the Gospels — serene, in the background, mostly voiceless.
During the days before her son’s crucifixion, this Mary warns Jesus of “great danger” emanating from his stunts around Judaea. She takes a dim view of the “misfit” disciples who prod him on. These men, she says, have “something missing in each one of them that made me want to disappear.”
To cope with the “great restlessness,” Mary turns to a statue of the Greek goddess Artemis, associated with virginity and childbirth. Begging Artemis for deliverance from her pain, Mary feels despair and confusion — the same emotions that Jesus’ disciples wish to stifle in Mary two decades later, as she gives her account.
“They want what is written down to remain forever and to change the world,” says Mary of the disciples’ demands she corroborate their version of her son’s journey from hunted preacher to the resurrected son of God.
Following a gory description of “The Passion” worthy of Mel Gibson, Mary returns to her dying son and agonizes over whether to hire someone to break his legs, so death will come sooner.
Despite not buying into the Gospel version of his miracles and resurrection, Mary admits her son’s death brought on a new era of sorts.
“What had come from his suffering remained in the air around us like something sweet to comfort us,” Mary says, while expressing guilt she “stood there and remained still and silent” as her son was nailed to the cross.
“The world is a place of silence,” concludes Mary, who — decades after the crucifixion — still keeps an empty chair for Jesus. She dreams he will return one day, and of “holding him, his body all cleansed of pain.”
