Theater in the United States has not always been honest with the public when portraying Christian themes. Audiences have often been drawn into the theater to see what promoters hawk as the real thing, only to find overly interpreted and elaborately costumed gospel “junk food” at best, misleadingly inaccurate pap at worst. One gets the feeling that Eric Booth, star of St. Mark’s Gospel, has little patience with that treatment.
During an interview in Chicago, Booth’s first city with the play, he said, “This is the real stuff. Nobody’s trying to shape a dramatic event [neither directors, nor actors, nor producers]. There’s no editing here …
“Theatrically, I know that telling the truth works … the audience may not go out saying ‘Wow, what an actor that Eric Booth is,’ but they go out with more in their hearts. I’m now devoted to that task of delivering this material to the heart as opposed to the mind.”
Nobody would charge this production with overdependence on theatrical trickery. The only props on the bare stage are a table, three chairs, a pitcher, and glasses.
You’ve seen the script often—the King James version of the Gospel of Mark. Some members of the audience follow in their own pocket-sized copies—perhaps not believing anyone can memorize that much! The first eight chapters are presented in the first act, the remaining eight after intermission.
Booth presents Mark’s gospel account in a straightforward manner. He becomes the story-telling author (without the aid of make-up or costume) throughout the play’s two hours. He believes there are many parallels between Eric the storyteller and Mark the storyteller. “While neither of us was there during the events, we both believe these things happened. We both care enough that we devoted a major portion of our lives to telling about these happenings.”
Booth is a veteran actor. His most recent Broadway credit was with Mary Tyler Moore in Whose Life Is This Anyway? He has done some of the more demanding Shakespearean roles: Henry V, Hamlet, the King of Navarone in Love’s Labours Lost, and Ariel in The Tempest. He has done television, is a published poet, has taught acting—and serves as an auxiliary policeman in New York City.
Calling the play “the biggest challenge, as an actor, I’ve ever accepted.” Booth devoted 10 months to the production before it ever went on stage. Six months alone were spent in memory work.
Throughout the preparation of the play, Eric Booth went through some rather dramatic changes of his own—spiritual changes that are even now taking place in his life. Before beginning work on the play, he was a self-described “nominal Christian.” His parents had him baptized as an infant in the Dutch Reformed Church. Following that, he attended a variety of churches: Methodist, Presbyterian, and so on. At the age of 12, he said, he began a serious examination of various denominations, after which he became a Quaker.
Booth said he was humbled by the whole experience during the early stages of memorization for the play. “Everything I’d done professionally as an actor was not working. Along about month seven, an enormous change came about. I began to get aware of the fact that I was cramming these words, which now seemed quite powerful and interesting, into my personal belief system and to feel in-adeauate in that … I was on the wrong track.
“I felt something different had to go on—something I’d never approached as an artist before. I felt my personality and ego were inappropriate to the role. I began a process of trying to eliminate my own ego. There came the moment … when this little voice inside me began to say, ‘This really happened, don’t treat it like a fiction.’ That little voice began to change everything.”
As a performer, this conscious effort to remove Eric Booth from the storyteller Mark has continued. He often writes himself notes after a performance or rehearsal, reminding himself to keep out the “hokeyness and actor trappings.”
As for the audience response, Booth says, “There’s this incredible politeness. I’ve never received this kind of response. The most amazing thing to me is, everyone seems to have something different to take away. Normally the actor shapes the response and controls the experience. In this, because there’s no ego, I’m just putting it out. People seem to be impressed by different parts than what you might predict. It seems to meet people’s needs where they are.
“Christians say it’s like they just got a new shot of energy—a new battery put into old machinery. The non-Christians who have seen it tend to say ‘So that’s what it’s all about!’ Some have said, ‘I didn’t realize how interesting and how moving it was.’ It gives them cause to stop and think.”
Eric Booth, the human being, seems to have been affected as well. Even his wife (an actress with her own very active career), who has been with him only through long-distance telephone conversations of late, can notice a difference. She finds him kinder and more understanding.
The actor himself seems to be waging a battle familiar to many Christians at some point in their lives. In reference to the contents of the “script,” he says, “Much as I would like to, I can’t escape what it says. There are hard facts and truths that are inescapably direct and confronting me. Repeating it eight times a week, it’s sifting down into my bones.”
While Booth’s involvement in the role of Mark will range over the better part two years, he seems not to find this limiting, “I’d hate to think of playing Hamlet for that long, but I’m still excited about this role.”
Many of Booth’s professional friends told him he would be a fool to leave his promising career to go on tour with such a questionable commodity. They may be having second thoughts now. The production, booked into most major cities in the United States, is under the direction of a secular company, Playhouse Enterprises. Directing the production is the famous British actor, Alec McCowen, who originated the role in England. There is no connection with any church or religious organization.
St. Mark’s Gospel seems to gather most of its support from word-of-mouth advertising. Attendance for the first few performances often is sparse. By the end of the play’s run, however, the theater is a sellout. “The producers are in seventh heaven” said Booth, in reference to the play’s financial success.
To some, the name, Eric Booth, may have a familiar ring. The fact is, his grandmother’s grandmother was the daughter of John Wilkes Booth!
By far the most unusual quality Booth displays as an actor, at least in this instance, is his willingness to sacrifice personal recognition in favor of the accurate transmittal of a message. One cannot help but wonder if this response to the play, as well as the response of the audience, must be due, in no small part, to the strength of the author and his source of inspiration.
The effect of this production, above all, seems to be the presentation of Mark’s work without alteration or deception. That level of honesty is refreshingly encouraging for future theatrical productions dealing with Christian themes. The fact the production appears to be a money maker must be an encouragement to the producers as well.
One can only hope this is the beginning of a trend for theater in America.
J. B. KUMP1Currently serving with the U.S. Air Force Education with Industry Program at WGN Continental Broadcasting in Chicago, Major Kump will shortly be reassigned to Frankfurt, Germany.
