GFU Theatre review: "Whatever Kindles"
Sara Kelm, Guest Reporter
November 7, 2007
"Do whatever most kindles love in you."
The Colombian woman repeated the phrase in Spanish, before emphatically stating, "Do whatever kindles love. Whatever kindles love."
Then the lights went out, closing the George Fox University world-premiere production of Tricia Gates Brown's play, "Whatever Kindles."
The show opened on Thursday, October 25, 2007 to a crowd of about 200 people in Wood-Mar Auditorium. When the audience entered the theater, they saw the stage covered in seven large cement-looking blocks, placed on top of each other haphazardly and jutting out at sharp angles. Three large screens were hanging over the blocks, projecting the view of the Earth from the moon. Soft music played in the background, but as the time grew closer to the show starting, dialogue started over top of the music, mostly news reports in multiple languages with some gunshots. That was the beginning of a journey into the dangerous and controversial world of peace-making. The audience followed seven members of Christian Peacemaking Teams (CPT) that were doing violence-reduction work in the West Bank, Iraq, Colombia, and Canada. CPT is a real organization that Brown, the playwright and alumna of Fox, has been part of for several years, and she used her experiences and those of others to write this fictional play.
The 1 hour and 45 minute play was presented in a monologue format, with the characters speaking directly to the audience and a few scenes interspersed showing some dynamic conflict involving a CPT member. The screens above the stage projected pictures to either show the setting of the scene or other images pertaining to the subject, whether the images be of dead bodies, torture, threat, or oppression. The seven CPT members portrayed were a variety of ages, ranging from just out of college to retired. Different ethnicities were also represented. Each of these differences gave the character a different perspective on war and the country in which they lived.
While the characters were onstage telling their stories, there was always at least one guard with a gun watching them-and us-closely, a reminder that they always faced danger. The play also brought it home, made the issue personal to Americans; the abuses and tortures by the American military of Iraqi prisoners were referenced alongside the injustice inflicted by guerillas and paramilitaries in Colombia.
The effectiveness of this show was in juxtaposing the lovely with the horrific, the beauty with the death, the joy with the pain. "Whatever Kindles" did not give any answers. It just asked more questions. None of the characters were completely confident in their peacemaking work. All of them had doubts. They were men and women, humans who struggled with finding meaning and purpose. Still, they were actively seeking what it meant to them to be a peacemaker in today's world.
Each character also had to make sacrifices, and some of them couldn't handle the pain. Some struggled with losing loved ones, while others had to deal with threats against their lives. Some of the struggles were internal, whether it was fighting fear, anger, racism, or hatred. These sacrifices and pain just made the characters seem more real to the audience, showing that no one is perfect.
The challenge that the audience left with was simply, "Now that you know about the pain of war and how it hurts human beings on both sides, what are you going to do about it?" Not everyone is called to go out and join CPT, but Christians are called to be peacemakers. As one of the characters said, "History is this endless cycle of violence. I think Jesus came to stop it." If Christians are to be Jesus in this world, then what are they doing to help the oppressed and injured? It's a challenge that will never be completely reconciled, but that should always be on Christian hearts. "Whatever Kindles" challenged the audience to step out of the "Fox bubble" and see the world in a new way. The hope is that the challenge will motivate action towards working for peace around this hurting world.