The Amish Project

 

At Pacific Theatre until November 21, 2015
604-731-5518/www.pacifictheatre.org

Posted November 9, 2015

“Jesus bids us shine like a pure, clear light/Like a little candle burning in the night”. Susie Coodin, the sole performer in The Amish Project, made me think of this Sunday school song from my childhood; Coodin glows with a pure, clear light as a little Amish girl from Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Primly dressed in a navy dress, black stockings, sensible shoes, white apron and white bonnet, Coodin steals your heart in this heart-wrenching but uplifting tale of forgiveness. She almost skips across the stage, drawing imaginary stick figures on an imaginary chalkboard: her character’s Mama, her Papa, her sister, her schoolteacher and her school friends. But the story Coodin tells is tragic.

“Man enters Amish schoolhouse and opens fire”. This was breaking news on October 2, 2006, when Charles Carl Roberts IV took a 9mm handgun and shot ten schoolgirls aged six to thirteen in the back of the head, killing five and seriously wounding the rest of them before turning the gun on himself.

But what was almost equally newsworthy was the Amish community’s response. The grandfather of one of the girls said, “We must not think evil of this man” and the Amish people agreed. Forgiveness is deeply rooted in Amish culture and, according to the Ordnung (the church ‘rules’ or ‘orders’), the murderer will have to answer to God. “Vengeance is mine”, said the Lord, so hatred or revenge is not for us, according to the Amish rules of behaviour.

The murderer’s widow and her children were, amazingly, comforted in their home by the parents of the slaughtered girls. The non-Amish community initially turned on the widow with accusations like, “If you’d been a better wife, he wouldn’t have killed all those girls,” but eventually forgiveness began to spread throughout the town. It was like a contagion of compassion.

In the playwright’s notes, Jessica Dickey tells us she conducted no interviews and she did no research into the gunman or his widow. This is a work, she explains, of fiction based on real events.

Under the excellent direction of Evan Frayne, Coodin not only portrays the young Amish girl but a young, unmarried, pregnant Puerto Rican girl who sells the widow “wrinkle cream”; the murderer; the murderer’s widow (who still loves him); a scholar who for twenty-five years has been studying Amish ways, and several others. At first the individual monologues are lengthy and complete but as the story draws to a close, Coodin transitions from one character to another, sometimes mid-sentence. It’s a lovely, skilled performance that keeps the audience completely enthralled. Coodin simply appears to glow from within.

Set designer Carolyn Rapanos leaves the set almost to our imagination with merely a few overhead planks and a wooden chair. Jonathan Kim’s lighting assists us in making the switches from character to character.

The Amish Project, a Bleeding Heart Theatre Production in association with Pacific Theatre, under the artistic direction of Ron Reed, does what we have come to expect at Pacific Theatre. Highly polished. Thought provoking. Spiritual.

Theatre that stays with you.