Act of Faith

At The Cultch until  April 20, 2019
Tickets from $24 at tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363

Posted April 13, 2019

The older I get the more likely I’m willing to accept, “whatever works for you is fine by me” – as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. If yoga is your thing for migraine, be my guest. Or celery juice for IBS. Or faith.

Faith in God is what Victoria playwright Janet Munsil tackles in Act of Faith. We think back on our Sunday School days about Jesus healing the lame man: “Rise, take up thy bed and walk” – and he did.

And that’s what happens to Faith (Danielle Klaudt) in Munsil’s play. In a wheelchair for the past twelve years, Faith suffered an undiagnosed illness that left her unable to walk. Now in her twenties, she is doing exceedingly well: a keen naturalist, she guides park visitors in her wheelchair  through the woods, and she has a long-running TV nature series. Producers of the show are proud – and probably smug – at having a ‘disabled’ host. Faith is happy and well-adjusted. And she has friends.

But she has dreams and, in the dreams, Jesus comes to her and encourages her to walk. And suddenly her best friend Jessica (Emily Grace Brook) and Jess’s mother Gloria (Tanja Dixon-Warren) turn against her and suggest she has been faking it all along. If you think Lady Macbeth is nasty, Dixon-Warren makes Mrs. Macbeth look like Mother Teresa as she tears into Faith, accusing her of making it all up. For twelve years? Why would she?

Realwheels Theatre’s mandate is to “create and produce performances that deepen understanding of the disability experience”.  Three of the cast of seven, including Emily Grace Brook, Janice Laurence and Harmonie Taylor perform in wheelchairs.  Choreographed by Carolina Bergonzoni, there are several sequences with wheelchairs whirling around in a sort of happy dance. Apart from wheelchair athletes, you don’t imagine this sort of joyful celebration on wheels. Good to see.

Faith’s brother Damon (Mason Temple) remains a mystery to me. He’s definitely broken and mentally disturbed but except for the possibility of a fall in his early childhood, we never know exactly what his problem is. He’s chatty with Jess but hostile toward Faith. And he’s definitely disliked by Gloria – but then Gloria doesn’t seem to extend Christian charity to anyone except her daughter Jess. I’m not sure what Damon is actually doing in this play.

Shaking and shuddering to her feet, Klaudt is completely believable as Faith. She’s an earnest, spirited performer with a lot of appeal and she clearly has done her homework in managing her wheelchair, wheeling with ease around David Roberts’ set – several large, movable walls representing on one side the church and on the other, Faith and Jess’s apartment.

While Brook, who lives with paraplegia, has done stand-up comedy for Reelwheels’ Comedy on Wheels, Act of Faith is her “theatre debut” – and an amazing one at that. Jess is the disbelieving voice of many of us and Brook takes us from being Faith’s supportive, loving, funny, best friend to her angry, jealous, estranged roommate. Why, she wonders, has Jesus chosen Faith to heal and not her? Disbelief and envy are mixed in equal proportions.

Raugi Yu is physiotherapist Raff who represents a sort of middle-of-the-road approach to healing: physio plus a good attitude – and if that good attitude comes from faith in God, fine.

Directed by Rena Cohen, Act of Faith could use a little more subtlety in performance and it makes the point – how many of us mistrust or reject the healing power of God – early in Act 2 and does not significantly move on from there. References to myxomycetes (slime mold) don’t appear to go anywhere so, apart from showing how knowledgeable Faith is, it doesn’t seem relevant.  And, as a metaphor, releasing the captured hummingbird would have been uplifting rather than leaving it cupped in the hands of Damon, Jess and Faith as play ends.

Very early in the play Jess and Faith poke fun at those who tell them how “brave” they are, how “inspiring”. Act of Faith is not a perfect play but there’s no other way of saying it: it’s a “brave” play, bravely performed. And perhaps it will inspire us to be grateful for miracles – from whatever source they spring.