Sunday Metaphors in Performance Spaces

What does church have to do with a play about bugs? Bear with me . . .

This morning we attended church at the Chester Fritz Auditorium in Grand Forks, ND. Our church is Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Forks, but it canceled its regular services in order to invite all members to one combined service at the Fritz at 10:00 A.M. for the installation of our new lead pastor Roger Dykstra. The stage was set up with our altar and baptismal font and lectern, with the instruments for the band that usually leads the contemporary services in our fellowship hall each Sunday (while traditional services are going on in the sanctuary at the other end of our church), with a baby grand piano, with chairs for a brass ensemble, and with risers and an acoustical shell for the church choir. Hanging above it all was an overhead projector screen upon which were projected lyrics to the hymns sung, words to the prayers recited, etc. We all had printed programs in our hands, but we didn't need them; we could follow along on the screen the entire service.

The background image for each slide projected on the screen was a barren landscape: arid, parched land with cracked soil (like a mud puddle that has been baked dry in the sun), punctured in the foreground by a few posts forming the corner of a fence. I think there were mountains or hills in the far background, too. Our friend Erin sat with her kids behind me and our kids (Erin's husband Jay and my wife Susan are both in the choir, so we had our respective children alone), and both Erin and I agreed that the image reminded us of Matthew Shepard and The Laramie Project--not exactly the right mood for a pastor's installation and a church's celebration! But the image was meant to suggest our church's Lenten metaphor: thirst . . . for the saving "water" of Jesus, of God's word, etc.

And this metaphor was literally "on stage" in one of the largest performance venues in the Grand Cities. Performers included Bishop Foss, who presided over the installation; Pastors Jenny, Marty, and Roger, who led us in worship; and all the musicians, including Susan (in the adult choir) and Suzanna and Abigail (in the children's choir) in a combined-choirs version of "Here I Am, Lord." Okay, one metaphor and one performance space down.

After church, we drove through Burger King and ate on our way to Fargo. We dropped the girls off with Susan's sister Cassie at her apartment, and then we two went to Moorhead, MN to the campus of Concordia College and found the Frances Frazier Comstock Theater, where we attended a performance of The Butterfly's Evil Spell by Federico Garcia Lorca. Michael, a former student of mine, was in the play, so we wanted to see it and support him. (We sat next to two other former students, by the way--Paul and Kelsey.) All the characters in the play were bugs, and Michael's intended to eat most of the other ones. That's about all I got out of it, plot-wise; I suspect the relationships between the bugs was intended to be metaphorical about life--but my brain didn't get that far.

However, I did enjoy Michael's movement and the movements of so many others in the cast; the interesting, suggestive (of a forest of bugs, that is) costumes; the simple but effective seven-foot-tall cardboard, painted sprigs of grass that served as scenery; and the evocative, very unusual music chosen for pre-show, set changes, and post-show. The lab theater had just a few vines and fake foliage hanging from the ceiling or taped to the back wall, but it was enough. I liked how the actors hid behind the sprigs of grass and then moved them around the stage for scene changes (very choreographed), accompanied always by the right snatch of strange music.

So there's the second performance space . . . and, I'm sure, a metaphor or several. I just can't analyze it too deeply right now. I can, however, recollect that we did not leave town until we had eaten at The Olive Garden. Yum. Next: a trip back to Concordia March 31 to see another former student in the next play, She Stoops to Conquer.