The fourth production in the Dickinson Area Concerts Association's 2006-07 series was last night--a musical called Church Basement Ladies, based upon the Scandinavian Lutheran humor of authors Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson. They have written books teasing/celebrating their memories of growing up Lutheran in ND and MN, where Scandinavian immigrants' descendents have tended to cling to tradition so tightly and rigidly that today's American Norske and Swede conservative behaviors, attitudes, and foods are pretty unrecognizable to modern Norwegians and Swedes who visit our country. ("You still eat lutefisk here in the States? Why?!") (Good question.)
Martin and Nelson's books include Luther's Small Dictionary: From AAL to Zululand, Growing Up Lutheran: What Does This Mean?, Lutheran Church Basement Women, They Glorified Mary, We Glorified Rice: A Catholic-Lutheran Lexicon, Cream Peas on Toast: Comfort Food for Norwegian-Lutheran Farm Kids (and Others), and They Had Stores, We Had Chores: A Town-Country Lexicon. They are a hoot for any of us who recognize from our own childhoods the many social mores, common phrases, religious practices, and foods that Martin and Nelson hold up as exemplars of just what it meant to be Lutheran growing up in this part of the country.
And let me tell ya, even the many non-Lutherans in the audience last night were in stitches. The many jabs at Catholics were received with good humor--good thing, too, since the show was performed in the auditorium of the local Catholic high school! And the truly huge auditorium was filled to overflowing; we had to sit in the balcony. The show takes place in the basement of a small MN Lutheran church in the '60s where we watch three generations of church women prepare food for lutefisk suppers, funerals, fundraisers, and weddings. In most of our communities, social events somehow involved the church; and events at church usually involved food; and food at church had to be prepared and served by somebody: the ladies of the community serving in one of the church's "circles." I was picturing many of them from Zion Lutheran Church in McGregor, ND as I watched, and I'm sure everyone else there was able to see on stage representations of people they themselves knew (or, perhaps, reflections of themselves?).
The melodies weren't particularly memorable, but the lyrics were clever, and the actors delivered them all with clarity and just the right attitude, never themselves making fun of the people whom their characters represented--instead letting the humor come from our own recognition of those people and just how like us all they actually are! The church basement ladies recite the typical foods served at a funeral (Cheez Whiz and green olives on open-face brown buns, seven kinds of pickles, watery Watkins nectar for the kids, etc.), and the audience nods and laughs with a, "Wow, that's exactly right!" kind of recognition. They make it to church and prepare the food no matter the temperature, the weather, the condition of the roads, or the failure of the church furnace. They resist seasonings and spices as sinful temptations, passing up anything more daring than salt or pepper and turning up their noses at the lasagne that the new (and "city girl") wife of the pastor innocently brings as a contribution to a potluck (but repressing their true feelings and avoiding conflict with an insincere, "Well, isn't that nice?").
This concert series has been very, very impressive; and the play last night was a true treat. It makes me proud to be a Midwestern Scandinavian Lutheran (is there any other kind, really?), no matter how repressed or conservative we are, and no matter how staid our traditions and bland our foods.
Church Basement Ladies
(Past events in this impressive concert series: The Golden Strings, Cadence, and Presidio Saxophone Quartet.)
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