The Truth About Our Fall Mainstage Show
By Ethan Norman
I was helping my wife run lines when I realized what I had done. In the midst of offering a very dry reading of the other characters for her to practice with, I was moved. I mean, the scene actually touched me. I had no idea this scene was in the play; it caught me off guard. I started to tear up, but I hid it well. I had no idea, because I hadn’t actually read the whole thing. I had no idea because most of it is so cleverly funny. I knew the story, vaguely, by “proximity” to it as a company member and the husband of one of the actors. I trust our company to pick good shows, so I assumed some level of quality. But, I confess, I had only read one scene when I wrote a marketing blurb for it.
Isn’t it just like an American Christian to scratch the surface, then talk as if he had deep understanding in the matter, lacking all humility? Isn’t it just like one to use his skills and talents as a cover-up or replacement for some lack of integrity? Now, you may be thinking, “chill out broseph, people do that all the time.” That’s just the thing. I want desperately to prove and support the excellence and integrity of The WordPlayers to the smallest detail, so it means something to be thorough. It means something to us, and to Christ whom we claim to serve. So it doesn’t matter what “people do all the time.” Confession given; point made.
Now for the truth about our Fall Mainstage show, See Rock City. I have run lines with my wife a few times, and have covered most of the script, I believe. We bounced around, so I can’t be certain. Based on what I have now read through multiple times, I want to see it. I want to see the actors breathe life into this close-up story, under the direction of long time WordPlayer, Matthew Lloyd. It is a beautiful, tight-lens depiction of characters that we already fell in love with, but also a brilliant peripheral view of the far-reaching effects of a world at war: the violence and hatred reaching thousands of miles to alter lives on a small-town porch, thousands of miles from the front. It is not the best writing I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t vastly impressive. What strikes me is that you find it in the big, “whole world/that could be me” sort of way, and you feel it in the small, “my backyard/I know that feeling” sort of way, at the same time. I don’t want to give anything away; just come and see. That’s the truth. That’s the best I can do until we open on October 26.