Back in the Middle Ages, theologians had nothing but Sin on their minds - they saw Satan lurking around every corner, tempting us to fall. Nowadays, though, it’s mainly Disbelief that God’s got to worry about. Oxford don C. S. Lewis spotted that trend back in 1941, when The Screwtape Letters appeared serially in The Guardian newspaper.
Well, things haven’t changed in 75 years, which makes the current New York Off-Broadway presentation of The Screwtape Letters still totally relevant. Set up as a series of letters from a crafty senior devil counseling a junior soul-stealer, it makes for a captivating one-man show for Max McLean, who’s carved out quite a niche for himself in such faith-based theatricals as Mark’s Gospel and Genesis.
It's not totally a one-man show, actually; McLean’s joined on stage by Karen Eleanor Wight, playing his attendant imp Toadpipe. Besides giving the audience something extra to look at - this is a VERY wordy piece - she manages not only to enact all the other parts and carry off stage business, but to convey the degraded animality of pure evil. Slithering around a distinctly dank and dungeon-like set, her creepy pantomimes brilliantly counterpoint Screwtape’s bombastic rants. I’ll give director Jeffrey Fiske an A+ for stagecraft alone.
But here’s the big question: Who is the audience for this piece? It’s possible to ignore the Christian allegory in Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and read it as a straight children’s fantasy, but The Screwtape Letters is an unapologetic argument for Christianity – very entertaining, no question, but still out-and-out God propaganda. And though the production’s staged in a church – the Theater at St. Clements – it’s a church that long ago converted to an Off-Broadway theater six days a week. This production has to succeed dramatically, not just preach to the choir.
The play’s producers, Fellowship for the Performing Arts – bless their hearts - are devoted to producing “theater from a Christian worldview that is engaging to a diverse audience.” If that’s your broad goal, it seems to me, you can’t assume that the audience members have all read C. S. Lewis. The production could have done more – a little dumbshow at the beginning, at least – to set up the play’s premise. It’s tricky to adjust to the fact that when Screwtape says “Our Father” he means Satan, and “the Enemy” is God. It’s confusing even on the written page; on stage, it can be just plain baffling for the first half-hour of this 90-minute production.
Article comments
1 - Dan Anton
Sounds like a great play/story and also a good way to get people thinking again about their faith..and what they truly believe. I live in NJ and haven't been to a play in about a year; nothing beats theatre
2 - margaret
I saw it in SF Bay area this month... I know the book well, but found it extremely difficult to understand much of Screwtape's dialog--lots of bombast and staccato delivery, very little variety in speech inflections, a real problem with stepping on his own lines rather than letting Lewis's words penetrate the ear and mind.
My twenty-something companions couldn't understand it either.
Adding to the problem was that the actor was miked and the mike contributed muffling.
But the set and Toadpipe were wonderful.
3 - Holly A Hughes
Why do they insist on miking actors even in small theaters?
True, he did seem to feel the need to layer on blustery vocal emphasis, when Lewis's words are damning enough. But I didn't find it hard to understand his dialog. Bad acoustics can ruin a wordy play like this.
4 - Sarah Ferrante
I saw McClean's performance (in late 2008, I believe) in D.C. Yes, the words came a bit fast at first, but I was able within two or three minutes to follow along easily. McClean is over-dramatic, to be sure, but I cannot see Screwtape as anything else on stage. Letting Lewis' words sink in gradually is great for written pieces, but the stage is a whole other animal.
As for "blustury emphasis," any less would have allowed the play to fall dead on the stage. Modern audiences are not patient enough for words; accustomed to watching movies rather than reading books, the modern theater-goers NEED such emphasis to pick up on certain things. Their minds are often too dull to catch humor in the words, so they need it in the intonations.
As for the quick pace of the play, anything over 90 minutes of monologue would not sell. Period. McClean is racing to the finish the entire time so he can get his message across before you tune out.
I know full well I should be a critical audience member, and I rarely give any play a rave review.
"Screwtape Letters" is my one noteable exception.
5 - Holly A Hughes
It's great to see that this play has been steadily working its way around the country. I'd be curious to see it in different cities and see how audiences respond. I agree, Sarah, that the actor needs to "sell" the words with intonations and theatricality; I just had a different conception of Screwtape's personality, that's all. But wow, do you really think audiences are "too dull to catch humor in the words"? I was impressed by how well my New York audience followed Lewis' complex arguments; they didn't need it dumbed down. And I'd assume this is true everywhere. Maybe it's a self-selecting audience, granted...
6 - Keeshlon
Sadly, I can't see the play; it's not wheelchair accessable.
7 - Holly A Hughes
Yes, it's a weird little theater -- renovated before the code required accessibility. On the other hand, though I wrote this three years ago, I see that it is playing in New York again, so anyone who can has an opportunity to see it again.
8 - Screwtape Letters
Question for anyone on the NYC showing of Screwtape Letters by the Fellowship for the Performing Arts at Westside Theatre -- Why does the Telecharge ticketing website say: "Audience: May be inappropriate for 13 and under."? Is there any sexual content, vulgarity, etc?
If anyone has seen seen the play and can help me out, please tell me what you know [edited]
[personal contact info deleted]
Thanks!
9 - Holly A Hughes
I think it may be because of some suggestive sexual scenes involving Screwtape's daemon Toadpipe, who tries to seduce our hapless hero. That was rather erotic, though it was only a tiny portion of the play. I'd think a sophisticated 12-year-old could handle it -- the swift and slippery language would be more of a problem. They may just be trying to keep out young children who might be attracted to something written by the author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
10 - Screwtape Letters
Great, thanks Holly, much appreciated!!
The folks at FPA confirmed that it's simply because "...the show requires a mature audience to appreciate the content and ideas being presented. It may be difficult for a young audience to sit still and quite during the entire production, therefore unfair to them as well as others in attendance. In addition there are portions of the play that could be frightening to someone under the age of 13."
Look forward to seeing the play!
11 - Holly A Hughes
Enjoy it!
12 - Bill
Good review. We will be coming back to NY to visit family later this month and may take it in.
Was a little troubled by your dichotomy between evangelical Christianity and a "thinking man's faith." All Christians, Lewis included, need to make the leap past logic at some point to embrace the Divine.
On the other hand, the suggestion that Evangelicals, many of whom warmly embrace the writings of Lewis, are unable to approach their faith in a thoughtful manner is a bit offensive. Just my $.02.
13 - Holly A Hughes
Sorry if I had to use shorthand to convey two different approaches. I think it's fair to say, though, that some people need to intellectualize religion in order to get to the point of faith; others are impelled more by emotion/passion at the outset, and in general Evangelical churches encourage that. (Generalizing is always tricky.) Both, of course, eventually rely on both reason and emotion to work out the application of faith in their ongoing lives. The dichotomy may be more social than religious, but a dichotomy there is.
14 - David Plummer
Just saw it in LA (Glendale). Loved it. I agree that at points McLean was talking a bit too fast, particularly in the early going, but either he slowed down a bit or I got used to it.
His approach to the character was fine with me, pretty much how I saw Screwtape in my head. Screwtape's insights on human nature are far too frighteningly accurate and sophisticated for a bumbling bureaucrat a la The Office. For all his lying, failures and vainglory, the little devil actually knows what he's talking about. He sounds more like an expert in psy-ops -- like he could recite The Art of War and Machiavelli cover to cover -- instead of a floundering middle manager desperately combing his stack of management guru bestsellers for the cure.
That's what makes the book so compelling. The schemes he describes are so insidious and well thought out that they make me shudder, like feeling the breeze of a bullet that barely missed. Not only could they work, they apparently often do ("he is now safe in our Father's house", "I could show you a pretty cageful down here"). If Screwtape was really so ineffectual, the book would be a bore and we might never have heard of CS Lewis.
Screwtape may be on the losing team, which is the basis of the comedic aspects of the book, but he is still extremely dangerous and must be played on stage accordingly. Otherwise he's just a cartoon "in red tights", the very vision he tells Wormwood to suggest to the Patient's imagination to keep him blind to their existence.
15 - Holly A Hughes
Excellent analysis, right on the money. The book is so brilliant, I was worried that the play would dumb it down -- thankfully it doesn't.