The Value of Theater Education

Goodness, it's been a while since I posted. But with good reason. The last two or three weeks have been dominated by Crystal Sea Drama Company's production of Seussical, which my daughter was in and with which I assisted the director. As my involvement in CSDC increases, this may become the new pattern for my blog: two or three weeks of silence toward the end of every show.

It has been a crazy couple weeks. But wonderful, also. And watching all these students -- about sixty overall between the cast and all the tech crew -- reminds me of why theater is such a valuable thing for kids to be involved with.

- They learn to be comfortable with public speaking. And to be good at it: good volume, comfortable pacing, expressive delivery. I think public speaking still ranks high on the lists of people's greatest fears -- it may even be number one. But almost everyone will have some occasion to speak to a group sometime in their lives (best man toasts? praying at church?), and you may as well feel comfortable at it.

- They interact in an intimate way with art and literature. There's much to be said about exposing your kids to art: taking them to museums and shows and concerts. But there's much MORE to be said for their being actually involved in the creation of art. To let them see the whole thing from the inside out. To engage in the act of creation, one of the ways we are made in the image of God.

I think every kid in the country reads a Shakespeare play at some point in their education, but how much more impactful would that be if they were actually performing it? It is drama, after all; it's meant to be performed, not read.

- They learn empathy. When you are in a play, you become another person. You have to think what they would think, feel what they would feel, react as they would react. No better way to step into another person's shoes and see life from their perspective. Such skills transfer into the real world. And such skills are more important than I can even express here.

- They learn to accept criticism and feedback with grace. Part of the rehearsal process is having the director give you feedback on your performance and learning to apply it. Without taking it personally. Without feeling like a failure. Without copping an attitude. Without resenting the critic. And that's something they will need to do for the rest of their lives.

- They learn teamwork. Those sixty kids I mentioned earlier? Only a handful of them were lead roles on the stage. Some of them had a multitude of little roles. Some of them ran spotlights. Some of them helped actors with quick costume changes. Some of them opened curtains at critical moments to make set changes go quickly so the pace of the play wasn't disrupted. Every single person was critical to the production. And the run of the show was a success because every single person took their part seriously and did it with excellence.

- They make great friends. When you spend this much time with people, you get close. You become a family. It's wonderful.


There's so much more. I'm so grateful for the time I spent in theater when I was young, and I'm so grateful for the opportunities my own children have had. If you're a parent, I urge you to find a play for your kiddos to get involved in. At least once.

And if you're a San Antonio parent, may I recommend you look into Crystal Sea Drama Company? They have a couple summer camps coming up. Well worth it.

Kinda Disappointed . . .

A neighbor in New Jersey caught me at the bus stop one day to tell me she’d been watching a movie the night before about the life of Joseph from the Old Testament, and the last half hour of the show was cut off by the local news.  We laughed a bit about that, but then she kept looking at me:  “So, tell me – how does the story end?  I’m dying to know!”

Sometimes I forget how little the average American knows about the Bible -- even about the most well-known and coolest stories.

I don’t know how many of you saw the first episode last Sunday of the History Channel's new series, “The Bible”.  Hubby and I were excited to see it.  We’d been reading that the creators of the series saw this as a way to introduce the Biblically illiterate to the basic stories of the Bible, stories that (as I’ve said before) it behooves every American to at least be familiar with.

We were disappointed, I’m afraid.  I’ve read other opinions on the series, from people who were upset about the racial inaccuracies . . . a bunch of lily white folk dirtied up to look kind of Palestinian.  We weren't as disturbed by that, although we were a bit taken aback by all the British and Scottish accents.

But I’m mainly disappointed because if this is an effort to introduce people to Biblical stories, I don’t think it will succeed.  I think they just bit off more than they can chew.  They have to truncate things so much to fit the entire Bible into ten hours of TV time that they leave out important details which are necessary to make the stories comprehensible.  I think their target audience will come away from this thoroughly confused and thinking these fundamentalists have some pretty freakish beliefs.

I was also disappointed in some of their artistic choices.  For example, their depiction of the Exodus story.  For those of you whose familiarity with Moses and the Red Sea is limited to the Charlton Hesston movie, understand that the storyline about Moses and the Pharaoh having old grudges from childhood is not in the Bible anywhere.  Now, I don’t have any particular beef with the storyline as such – it’s not a ridiculous leap to make, and there is room for artistic license in productions like this.  But the fact that THIS production used the same storyline as the Charlton Hesston movie just solidifies in the viewer's mind that the storyline IS Biblical.  Not to mention that it’s just so unoriginal.  The brother rivalry take has been done.  Find another angle.

Anyway, we'll keep watching.  I hope you will watch, too.  I'm sure I'll have more to say about it later, and I'd love to hear what you all think . . . especially those of you who haven't grown up inundated with Biblical lore like I have.

Capitalism and The Fall

Last summer, I read a book called The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.  It is heavy reading, I’ll warn you.  Like a college textbook or something -- one of those books I had to mark up as I read to understand it.  I’d recommend it for your reading pleasure, but I suspect few of you would find its reading pleasurable, and then you’d be mad at me. J

In any case, the book makes a case for capitalism, and one of the points it makes is that capitalism assumes the fallenness of man and takes advantage of it.  Other systems, it contends, depend on people being good – either the general population or the particular people who are running things.  But Capitalism assumes that people are going to be selfish – because we are – and fashions things so that my working in my own self-interest ultimately works also in your interest (or, it at least does so as well as any system possibly could).

This sculpture is called "The Fallen Man".  It's more
about war than sin . . . but the image is wonderful
and applies to both concepts, I think.

A brief example: if I start a business selling groceries, my self-interest is to make as much money as I can, to support me and my family and whatever personal obsessions I have that require money.  But if I’m having to compete with other grocery stores to get your business, then the only way I can make that money is if I earn your business.  And the only way I can earn your business is by meeting your needs: offering you good quality groceries at a good price with good service.  I serve my interest by serving your interest.  Obviously, it gets more complicated than that, but that’s the idea.

Recent discussions from past posts of mine have revealed, however, how many friends I have who essentially don’t believe in “the fallenness of man”.  At least, not as the Bible teaches it and not as this defense of capitalism defines it.  These friends believe that if people are sinful, it’s not because they have an inherent sinful nature; it’s because society has screwed them over somehow and made them sinful.  And the solution to “sin”, then, is to re-shape society so it stops screwing people over.

And furthermore, I think that all of my friends who have espoused this belief about the nature of man also happen to be liberals.  In fact, at the moment, I can’t think of ANY Christian liberal friends of mine (and I do have Christian liberal friends) who also hold to traditional Biblical teachings about such things as the fallenness of man.  Surely there are some . . . hmmm . . .

I’ve had hopes for a long time of identifying the basic core differences between liberals and conservatives.  Surely I’m being too optimistic to think that I might have hit upon one . . .

Craft Weary

I shared a link on FB to a picture of a Christmas tree made out of stacked books. Very cool. My friend Robin ran with it and wrote a story on the trend for her blog at Mother Nature Network. And posted a picture of the book tree she made herself.

I used to do stuff like that. I would see cool ideas at craft shows and such places and try to recreate them. I have a shelf full of craft books in the basement that I used to browse through, looking for ideas for things I wanted to try someday. I watched home improvement TV shows and got all sorts of ideas for things to do to my house. I used to LOVE hands-on creative projects.

Not anymore. I have a cross-stitch piece I started to make for my mother-in-law when I was pregnant with my 11-year-old. It's still not done. That's kind of appalling to me, when I really sit and think about it.

I'm not sure why I don't enjoy crafts anymore. But I think do remember when my shift in attitude occurred. It was during my MOPS years in New Jersey. We did a craft at every MOPS meeting, and I enjoyed those a lot the first year or so. By the end of my MOPS tenure, I was just annoyed at the idea of having another cheap, corny item to find a place for in my house.

I was in charge of planning crafts for the kids in MOPS for a year or two, also, as I recall. I only remember it because I remember trying desperately to come up with crafts that would somehow go away with use -- a snack to be eaten, bathsalts that got poured in the tub, that kind of thing. From Sunday School, church nursery, preschool, MOPS, and any other child care I had the girls at, I had piles of cheap artsy craftsy projects laying around the house that I was tired of looking at.

So maybe it's just the clutter issue. I know I sound more and more like my mother every day, complaining about knick knacks being "just another thing to dust". I'm much more interested these days in crafting words than crafting things . . . and I think I'm a lot better at it. And they store themselves away very neatly on my laptop.

Courageous

Our small group met downtown Saturday evening to see the movie "Courageous". Yes, I cried several times. And I wasn't sure I would, even though everybody warned me to take tissue along. You see, I tend to watch such movies with a very critical eye.

I'm inspired by this church in Georgia that decided to create some serious movies with Christian themes and promote them on a national scale. That's big and bold and . . . well, courageous. I had mixed feelings about their earlier efforts. "Facing the Giants" had some wonderful moments and was very well-done in a lot of ways. But then it had some scenes with some very amateur actors that were almost excruciating to watch. "Fireproof" was better, but still had some spots that just made me squirm.

With both movies, I felt like, for non-professional productions, they were pretty fantastic. But to really compete against the Hollywood establishment, they were going to need to up the ante a lot. "Courageous" does that, but I'm not sure it's quite there.

I feel strongly about the idea of having movies out there that demonstrate Christian thought and worldview in a positive way without being preachy. But to be effective, they've got to be very high quality. And again, they can't be preachy. They can't simply be a thinly veiled attempt to convert the masses. That's laborious viewing for believers and nonbelievers alike.

All this said . . . I really did enjoy watching "Courageous". A wonderful story about what it means to be a man and a father. Our world needs to hear this. Our boys -- young and old -- need to see what it looks like to be a godly man . . . and be inspired to want to be one.

Concerning What the Kids Are Listening To These Days

On our drives to, from, and around Kansas this holiday season, we had occasion to listen to more of our daughters' radio preferences than we usually listen to. And I have some pertinent observations:

- Intricate melody lines are not integral to the genre any longer. Nor are simply interesting ones.

- Ke$ha apparently pronounces her name with a short "e" sound. And she's raunchy.

- If the singer's male, then I think it's Usher. They all sound like Usher to me. Except for Justin Bieber, who -- poor thing -- still sounds like an eleven-year-old girl.

- The Bieber boy does have a nice song in "Pray", however.

- Lots of repetition -- of notes, of phrases, of words, of syllables and consonant sounds. Remember when stuttering used to be a handicap? It's now a generational statement.

- I heard at least two songs that referenced Mick Jagger simply to make a rhyme with "swagger". You can't convince me any young lady these days wants a boy that looks like Mick Jagger.

- Selena Gomez apparently sings the theme song to the new Disney channel show "Shake It Up". I actually kind of like her stuff. And by all accounts, she seems to be a pretty together girl. Let's hope she doesn't go all Brittany/Miley on us.

- As often as they are told to put their hands in the air, I do hope today's teenagers have the deodorant situation all figured out.

- Katy Perry can give Ke$ha a run for her money in the raunchiness department. And Lady Gaga is just one bizarre chick (didn't need to listen to the radio to figure that out).

- All this durned new-fangled music sounds the same to me. Not bad necessarily . . . just all the same. I expect every generation of parents has thought the same thing. I'm officially old now. Dadnabbit.

Art (with a Big A)

Wow. This is apparently my 301st post. I'm still amazed that anyone would be interested in anything I have to say. Thanks for reading, everyone. And thank you for making comments -- either here or on FB. Always encouraging.

And speaking of comments, a friend commented on my "Complexity in Unity" post a while back and recommended a book to me: Walking on Water, by Madeleine L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books when I was a kid (the Young 'Un just read it and liked it, too), so I was curious to read more by L'Engle.

Love this book. Love it, love it, love it!! I'm reading a library copy and I'm going to have to buy my own so I can mark it up and absorb it more thoroughly. She's talking about Art and Christianity. About how Art (with a big A, in my mind) is by nature incarnational, a spiritual act. How it feeds our deep hungers. How it helps the meaningful finds its place in our psyche.

Very right-brained stuff. It occurs to me lately how left-brained I have been for most of my life. As much as I've always been into music and drama and dance, those endeavors, if I'm honest, were always about me -- me looking good in front of an audience. It really is only in the last several years that the right side of my brain has woken up and I've really come to appreciate Art (with a big A). I've read of studies that show that almost all of us in the preschool years are right-brained . . creative . . divergent thinkers . . artistic. It only takes a couple years of formal schooling to beat the right side of our brain into meek submission. How very, very sad.

(This also may explain how my very right-brained, artistic eldest child -- the Big 'Un -- relates so well to preschoolers. Hmm.)

I'm so glad that I've woken up. My life is so much richer now, full of metaphor and pattern and narrative and rhythm and symbol. Even God spoke to us in parables and poetry. How can we --who are made in His image, who are to strive to be Christ-like -- settle for half a brain?

Complexity in Unity

I read an article in some homeschool publication once about teaching art appreciation. It said that one quality which makes great art is that the piece has complexity and yet has unity. I'm no great artist or art critic, and I'm sure those who are would add to that summation, but I do like that description: complexity in unity.

That has come to my mind a few times lately in some varied environments. Some mosaic projects my girls did in our homeschool co-op made me think of artistic-looking furniture pieces I've seen at places like ArtSplash. Individually, the piece looks really cool -- a great work of art. But I can't see it in my house. The end table may have complexity and unity in itself, but when added to my living room, it would disrupt any sense of unity there.

Decorating for the holidays brings the concept to my mind again as well. We got out the fall/Halloween decorations last week. It always bugs me what a conglomeration of stuff we have. Craft projects from the early years, items that have been gifted to us, cheesy little toys the girls got in Sunday School or something. Complexity we abound in -- unity is nowhere to be found.

And the lack of unity grates on me when I'm living in the midst of it day in and day out. I'm finding that the unity side of this equation is much more important to me personally. I seem to be more of a big picture kind of gal when it comes to visual things. I can have an idea of how I want my bedroom to look, or the kind of outfit I want to wear to the premiere, but I don't have a clue how to pull the different individual elements together to make it happen. The little pieces -- the complexity -- are beyond me.

But I'm not that way in everything. The last couple days, I've been working on instruction lists for our backstage crew for the homeschool play. Four of our backstage people have "kid wrangling" in their job description -- getting kids where they need to be when they need to be there. I'm typing up lists for each of them of which kids they need to be responsible for getting to certain stage areas at specific times. It's very detailed work. And I'm kind of revelling in it. This complexity I can deal with and even enjoy. Yet, if I had to get all the costumes and props together for this production, it would literally make me cry.

All this to say . . . I'm wondering if this "complexity in unity" idea can reveal things about ourselves. I think the activities where I am most competent at pulling together complex details into a unified whole (and enjoy the process) are the activities where God has most gifted me. When God has gifted us, we become "artists" in that endeavor, whether it's painting, directing, teaching, selling, or plumbing. And when we see the fruits of our labor as a work of art, we are more motivated, more successful, and more fulfilled.

Asking the Questions

I just read an article about a couple in KC named the Pruitts who are starting new careers in the independent film-making world -- creating "movies made by Christians rather than Christian movies". That phrase banged a gong in my mind. My NJ friend Randy and I had a conversation once about not wanting to do "Christian theater", but to be a Christian in theater. Aha -- a kindred spirit, as Anne of Green Gables would say.

The article refers to a book by Paul Marshall called Heaven is Not My Home. A quick reading of a few reviews of the book gives me some concern, but Marshall's ideas that they mention in the article I like. Ideas about art (such as film and theater) and Christians. " . . Most people who watch Christian movies are, well, Christians. Those who aren't are either unaware these movies exist or hate them." True dat.

I always struggled with what to say about Fireproof and Facing the Giants. I kind of enjoyed the movies -- they had some particularly well-done and poignant scenes. But they had some other scenes that were just awful, honestly. Terrible acting -- so obviously amateurish. And the "gospel presentation" is too . . gosh, I can't quite think of the words. Simplistic. Unreal. Preachy. Preachy because it's so obvious that's the real reason the movie was made -- to "trick" someone into hearing a gospel presentation. They are "thinly veiled sermons" that "follow an evangelistic formula." So true dat.

And they do this because "we are impatient with the allusion, the gesture, the suggested, and latent. We want the straight-forward sermon, not the implied question." A-men. But as Marshall continues, a good film is "always allusive, suggestive, and alluring; it hints, it frames, and it touches. It does not come right out and state the case; it does not argue." A-MEN.

As Randy said (and I'm paraphrasing), theater is really good at asking the questions, but it really sucks at giving the answers. And many Christians are uncomfortable with that because they are afraid of leaving critical questions unanswered. We're always afraid that we will miss that one golden opportunity to lead someone to Christ.

Who was it that said, "They don't believe Jesus is the answer because they aren't asking the questions"? I believe there is tremendous value in theater (and film) that draws the viewer to the right questions, even without offering answers. Theater that walks them that one step closer to knowing God. And THAT is the kind of theater I ultimately want to be involved in creating.

ArtSplash!!!

Sioux City is a pretty cool town, really -- especially for its size. I mean, there's some really neat stuff that happens here.

Ever since we moved to Siouxland, we've been hearing about ArtSplash. We didn't quite get what it was exactly -- an arts festival, yes, but we weren't sure how appealing it would be to our family. But the JAM Action Squad at our church was doing a kids craft there, and our eldest volunteered to help out. So, our lazy inertia came to an end yesterday afternoon.

This is a very nice event, folks! Takes place down by the river -- a lovely spot in itself. They have rows and rows of artists (over a hundred, Keith and I estimated) with their works on display for sale or just for perusal. And some really good art! Now that we know about this, I think we may come prepared next year to look for some items for our home.

Then there's a main stage set up with live performances happening all afternoon. On Saturday, they had a "TalentSplash" competition -- kind of a "Siouxland's Got Talent" thing. We just heard the winner perform yesterday afternoon, but next year, maybe I'll have to come watch the preliminaries.

There's another small stage area -- the "Children's Loft" -- that has performances going on geared toward kids. We got there when a woman (the pastor's wife from the Orthodox Church I wrote about before) was leading everyone in some kind of dance/exercise based on traditional Indian and Bollywood moves. Our youngest joined in right away -- it was a lot of fun! There was a magician there, too, that she loved. Gave me some ideas for the drama team for next year . . .

Near the Children's Loft were several tables of craft projects (offered by various local groups, like Sunnybrook's JAM Action Squad) that kids could make and take home. Or they could get their face painted, their hair color-sprayed, their arms tattoo'd . . you know, that kind of thing.

And then, the obligatory food vendors with all the wonderful, greasy food that you only allow yourself to eat at such events because if you ate that way all the time, you wouldn't live past the age of thirty.

And the weather was glorious! Sunny, a little cool, a slight breeze blowing most of the time. Just a lovely afternoon. One of these days, maybe we'll learn that we don't often regret it when we get our lazy butts up and do things!

God As Narrative. Deep......

Yes, this is the fourth post this week. School starts next week, and then life will be a bit busier (or at least feel busier), so I want to get some stuff in before then.

One is another "book review". Well, not actually a review. The book is The End of Education by Neil Postman. Here's the review: it's great. Kind of deep, but great. I could probably write a long series of posts about the book -- and may -- because it was so thought-provoking.

By the way, when he talks about the "end" of education, he's not talking about education ceasing to exist. He's talking about the goal or purpose of education -- as in the phrase, "the ends justify the means." His main thesis is that we spend all of our time talking about the means in education and don't talk enough about the end. And he's right.

So, so many rich ideas in this book. But I want to share today his notion of our need for "a god to serve". By god, he doesn't mean God. He means, well, a great narrative -- probably the closest synonym I can think of is worldview. The stories we tell ourselves about what is true about ourselves, the world, life, etc. . . the stories that give (or don't give) meaning and purpose and direction to things. And as he says, we all need a god to serve -- a storyline that explains not just how, but why.

He then goes into discussion of many such "gods" that have failed our society over the years, particularly in education, and to suggest some more appropriate "gods" or narratives that would serve us better. Again, he's not talking about any kind of deity here. But I was struck with the idea of the god we serve being a narrative. And the fact that Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, was called The Word. The idea that God (our God, the deity), in his beyond-our-comprehension complexity, could be conceived by us in terms of narrative.

When we serve God, we are not simply serving a person (although he is a person). We are "serving" (or living our lives in terms of the truth of) a narrative (or story/explanation of everything). God, in his very nature, is the explanation. God, in his very nature, gives purpose and meaning and direction for all things. He doesn't just give us the narrative. He IS the narrative -- the Word.

Yeah, I told you. Deep. Actually, that is more deep and obscure than anything Postman says in the book, so don't let my weird thoughts scare you away from reading it. There's a lot more I'd like to write about from the book, but it's due back at the library soon. So, you may luck out- this may be the end of my deep thoughts. :) Then again, I'm considering ordering my own copy . . .

My Church Drama Philosophy

A friend suggested that I might find some direction concerning the drama thing at Sunnybrook if I articulated for myself my "philosophy of church drama". A good idea. The kind of thing I would do anyway. And I find that blogging facilitates such thinking processes for me, so you get to be privy to my ponderings. Lucky you. A forewarning: this may not be great quality writing -- brainstorming rarely is.

So, why do drama in church? (First of all, I should probably clarify that I'm mainly talking about sketches during the Sunday morning worship service. I know a lot of churches don't do those at all, but do drama for special events and such. I'm all for that as well, but since the Sunnybrook man is mainly focusing on the Sunday morning drama, that's where I'm focusing my theorizing at the moment.)

Well, I'm pretty adamant that we don't do drama just because it will entertain people, or to hold their attention, or anything like that. I mean, that may happen in the process, but that's not the goal. Not that there isn't a time and place for simply being entertained at a church event -- but in a worship service, there should be more to it than that.

I think it was somebody from Willow Creek from whom I first heard that a drama should set up the question that the sermon answers. That's the most common use of drama in a worship service, I think: to prepare the congregation for the sermon. Sometimes that takes the form of giving background information. They do that frequently at Sunnybrook--skits that tell the Bible story which is the text for the sermon. This is particularly appropriate, I think, in a "seeker-oriented" church, where you can't assume your listener has any Biblical knowledge coming in.

But what we did more of at Hope -- and what I like more -- are the skits that get the congregation in the right mindset to hear the word of God in the sermon. Something that they can observe and say, "Yeah! That's me! That's what I do. That's what I wonder. That's what I struggle with." Something that puts them mentally and emotionally in the place where they can apply the forthcoming message directly to their own lives.

And I've learned that the simpler such skits are, the better. The more auxiliary stuff involved, the more chance there is that the congregation will be distracted by that from the point of the sketch. My writing mentor Randy encouraged me to keep a piece focused and lean. I feel the same way about the "staging" on a Sunday morning. Having a lot of set pieces and props and extensive costuming often is a distraction more than a help.

I also think it's very important that the sketch and the sermon are closely tied together . . . that the latter flows naturally from the former. If you have a skit that sends the congregation's minds off in one direction, and then the preacher has to corral them back and send them in the different direction he is headed . . . well, that's a lousy skit for that service. It needs to be replaced, or tweaked, or scrapped altogether. We don't need to do drama just for the sake of doing drama -- it needs to be working in tandem with everything else in the service to make a point.

Doing such sketches, however, require several things. You have to have a pastor who plans far enough head to give the drama team time to pull a piece together. You also need writers who can create a piece (or tailor something from another source) to fit the focus of a particular service. You need, obviously, good actors -- and actors who are committed to this as their particular ministry, so they are available when needed. And ample rehearsal time, with a good director.

It's pretty easy to do a crappy job of drama ministry. And it's a challenging thing to do it well. Thus, my desire to be very sure about this commitment. I don't like doing things crappily.

Summer Sundays

Sunday night was our last community band concert for the summer (the last one for our family anyway -- we can't go next week). Keith suggested this activity one Sunday evening back in June, and we've gone several times. Yeah, he has a good idea once in a while. :)

We frankly weren't expecting much from the Sioux City Municipal Band, but they've been consistently good every week. A variety of composers and styles: this past Sunday we heard (among others) a classical piece by Verdi, a Sousa march, a Duke Ellington medley, a Phantom of the Opera medley and that song you always hear at the circus (which is called "Entry of the Gladiators" -- who knew?). We even heard a Toto medley a couple weeks ago. Gave me flashbacks to Godspell rehearsals -- Scott and Mike trying to harmonize to "Africa" and and Lani's "Rosanna" ringtone.

They also always have a couple of sing-along songs. This week was "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" and "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer". They're usually songs my kids have never heard of that I'm glad they're learning. Last time we sang a song called "Sioux City Sue". Good to get exposed to the local history and culture!

There's a guest soloist every week, playing a different band instrument (this past week -- the euphonium). And they sometimes have other musical groups there to contribute. This week, the Abu Bekr Shrine Chanters sang a couple songs (why they can't just call themselves a men's chorus, I don't know -- good work they do, but Shriners are an interesting breed).

A man named Dave Madsen, who is apparently a local TV personality or something, is the host -- which means he announces the songs and tells us a little about each piece (like the fact that there is a website out there with scads of different recordings of "Tico, Tico", including one by Donald Duck). He also sticks in a cheesy joke or two, including some Sven and Ole jokes, much to our delight.

The setting is gorgeous. Sioux City has this fabulous band shell that they recently renovated (every time I see it, I think Shakespeare in the Park -- somebody HAS to do that!). It's situated in a beautiful, spacious park on the northside. There are some benches, but most people bring lawn chairs or blankets and sit on the grassy slopes surrounding the shell. It's mostly older folks in attendance, but there are a lot of families, too. Kids run around playing while they listen. Some people bring their dogs. Just a neat atmosphere.

Even the girls seem to enjoy it. I wondered how much patience they would have with sitting through an hour-long (sometimes longer) concert of band music. I was pleasantly surprised.

This is the kind of thing I was excited to come back to the midwest for. Not that there aren't small-town outdoor band concerts somewhere in South Jersey probably, but I doubt they have the same feel. I so often wish I could bring some of my Jersey friends out here to live for a month, just so they get a feel for what the rest of the country is like.

Doubt

I had a most enjoyable evening out at the theater last night. All alone, but still enjoyable. I saw Doubt, A Parable at the Lamb Productions Theater (sounds like it should be a Christian theater or something, but it isn't). They bill themselves as the only professional theater company in the region, but I'm not exactly sure what that means. I know that I've never seen notices for auditions for any of their productions. They have a school -- maybe you have to get involved with their school to get noticed by them and put in productions. Whatever.

But it was an excellent show. An excellent play and and excellent production. Their theater is in an old elementary school building and is quite small, which surprised me. But for this production, it worked really well to be so intimately close to the actors.

The crux of the show is the suspicions that this nun, who principals a school, has about the local priest having an inappropriate relationship with a boy in the school. It's a fascinating play, because you vacillate back and forth through the whole thing about whether she's right or not -- and even about whether you want her to be right or not.

But the most thought-provoking part of it for me was the character of the nun, Sister Aloysius. She's tough, hard, legalistic, and fiercely protective of these kids, even to the point of accepting excommunication if that's what it takes. At least, you think that some of the time -- some of the time, you wonder if she just doesn't have some kind of axe to grind with this guy, or if she's become too suspicious and cynical and lost any sense of love and compassion . . . or if that kind of cynicism and coldness is a "necessary evil" in a sinful world.

She says a couple times in the play something to the effect that, one has to turn away from God when one turns to face evil. Hmmm. The first time she says it, it's almost a side-note, just said in passing. The second time has much more significance.

I feel like I want to see the play over again -- a few more times -- to decide what I really think of it. Or more specifically, what I really think of her. I know the big "mystery" of the play is whether the priest has sinned or not. But I'm more concerned with whether Sister Aloysius has sinned or not. If she has genuinely turned away from God -- even temporarily -- and if that was really as necessary as she said. And if I am more like her than I want to admit, Pharisee that I am.

I hope not. She can't be right that facing evil requires turning away from God. Surely, the only way to rightly deal with evil is to see it through God's eyes. How to accomplish that -- that's the big question.