Red House Arts Center stages historic comedy examining Holy Week reenactments

Triple cast in Sarah Ruhl’s “Passion Play” as Queen Elizabeth I, Hitler and Ronald Reagan, Amanda Bruton has been working with a dialogue coach and studying history so she can communicate the specific qualities of power and leadership for each figure. “I’m hoping to convey how each of them used religion as a tactic to make people love, hate, or fear them,” Bruton says.

“Passion Play,” which previews March 31 and runs April 1 though April 9 at the Red House Arts Center, examines three separate communities where dramatic reenactments of the death and resurrection of Christ are staged. Act I is set in 1575 England, when Queen Elizabeth, trying to control religion in the British Isles, demanded an end to the traditional passion plays.

The second act is set in Oberammergau, Germany, where, in the Middle Ages, residents began to reenact the events of the Christian Holy Week. The appearance of Adolf Hitler and lines from the 19th century anti-Semitic text bring realistic elements into the imaginative script. Act III, set in late 20th century Spearfish, South Dakota, completes the cycle.

James Jelkin, playing actors who portray Jesus in the different settings, describes his role like this: “My character gets three chances to figure out how to be a hero like Jesus was in the Passion story. What is truly heroic and what people tell you is heroic, well, they aren’t the same thing. My “lives” don’t get to remember what happened in the last go around, but it does affect

Article source: http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/03/red_house_arts_center.html