Posted on 10/23/2013 2:06:19 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
I left the National Youth Theatre’s production of Pope Joan feeling both angry and extremely moved. The disputed myth of the first and only female Pope touched something very deep in my psychology. Pope Joan is a medieval tale about the alleged first (and only) female Pope who rose to the top of the Vatican styling herself as ‘John’- she is devout, brave and willing to risk anything to be close to God. Prior to the start of the action, Joan has revealed her true identity to a Cardinal in the Vatican who she has slept with and is now carrying his child, obviously problematic in her desire to maintain her male disguise.
Joan’s problems, therefore, are tenfold. She is not blameless in the child’s conception and does not wish to keepit, as her cover will be blown. However, by aborting the child she feels as if she would be angering God because this would be a disavowal of God’s gift to females: the ability to procreate. Sophie Crawford’s (Joan) expressive eyes internalise this pain and conflict, in a tour de force of a performance. Crawford makes it clear that is her body that is her betrayer, and that she is torn in a fundamental dichotomy between her faith and her biology. Although her faith is stronger than any mans, her body renders this faith heretical. She dies a martyr as she is ‘discovered’ when she goes into labour whilst giving a delivering a sermon in the pulpit.
The setting of the play in St James’s Church, in Piccadilly is perfect for the production. It allows designer Fi Russell to excel in creating an extremely atmospheric setting, because she has already been given the gift of the ornate church wall and stained glass to work from as a backdrop. She has pushed the altar back and has filled the floor space with an enormous horizontal white cross. This acts as a raised stage for the action, and is a constant reminder throughout the play of Christ’s bodily sacrifice to God, reflecting upon Joan’s own struggle with her body.
Considering this is her first published play, Louise Brealey’s script is excellent, particularly the dialogue between Joan and her antagonist, the snarling Cardinal Anastasius who wants the papacy for himself, played with a sting by Robert Willoughby. The most powerful moment in the show is a silent physical scene where director Paul Hart uses the National Youth Theatre’s ensemble training to create a staircase up the isles and to the to Church altar which Crawford climbs up, breasts bared reaching out in desperation to the edifice of Christ above her head. She is prepared to give her body over entirely to Christ, but it is that same body and the child growing inside her that nullifies her connection with God.
Richard Geller and John Lipman have excelled in their creating the costumes for this piece. In tandem with Russell’s design and the church setting, Joan’s papal robes are heavily brocaded, creating an authoritarian sweep around he as she commands the Vatican, cutting through the dust of the Church. Anastasius is dressed, fittingly, in long and rich Satan-red robes, elongating Willoughby’s already tall natural height to make him tower above Joan and the rest of the Vatican, a genuine threat. The strengths in this production are typical of the National Youth Theatre, as they lie in the incorporation of the space into the ensemble work. As you sit in the pews, the Vatican meets, squabbles and shouts all around you, creating a multi-sensory experience where the entire cast is valuable in creating the scene around you.
Although this is a fictional story and has become long-embroiled in Christian and urban mythology, the tale of Pope Joan is particularly pertinent to today’s modern professional women facing the problems of maintaining a work-life balance between their career ambitions and their desire (or not) to have a family. Pope Joan is an aptly timed show, performed just as the bill to allow women bishops in Wales was passed, proof that the Church is finally accepting that the strength of your faith is irrelevant to your gender.
Acknowlegement and celebration? Now there’s a secularist spin on an event in sacred history.
“You want to put some bible verses in there to refute what I posted??? NO??? That’s because you can’t...”
You didn’t make a Biblical argument to begin with.
You want some verses? Here, have some:
http://www.staycatholic.com/call_no_man_father.htm
http://clearcatholic.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-calling-priests-father-unbiblical.html
When Catholics call priests "father," we are simply following the example set by Paul and the other early Christians. As long as we put nobody above God, we are following Jesus' teaching.
Your religion isn't doing any such thing...You are NOT following the example set by Paul and your are as Jesus warned, putting your clerics as equal with God...
Paul did not wear embroidered religious robes and put himself above the people...And while Paul acknowledged he was a 'spiritual' father, he in no way presented himself as a 'religious' Father to anyone...Ever...No throne...No fishhats...No crowns...
Your clergy are not fashioned after anyone in the scriptures other than the religious Pharisees and the pagans...
From your link:
Of course not. He is using an extreme example in order to rebuke the scribes and Pharisees for setting themselves up at the ultimate authority instead of God.
There it is...And not just the Pharisees but the Catholic religion as well...You have set up your priest hood and your visions of the ghosts of Jesus and Mary any your 'church' fathers, all known as Catholic Tradition as the ultimate authority above God...
Funny that your religion would try to use scripture that condemns your religion to actually defend your religion...
C'mon, read the scripture...Melchizedek certainly didn't perform a sacrifice...
There isn't a place in the Old Testament where bread and wine are used for any sacrifice...
Abram just killed a bunch of bad guys, recovered the lost valuables along with his kin and he was given food and drink afterwards...
You'll find nothing in the OT that describes otherwise...
Bread and wine were among the first fruits, and of course we offered in sacrifice. As for the celebration, “Hebrews” portrays the king of Salem as a prefigure of Christ.
No, Christ was not a creature but the incarnation of the divine in the form of a man. That he was a creature is an Arian doctrine.
No! the pity is that protestants do have the intellectual capacity to have an intelligent discussion or even realize how little they really know or understand.
1Co_2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co_2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
God's not interested in your superior intellect...I'm not either...
>> “people who belong to denominations, invented by dissident Catholics...” <<
.
Your shot went wide astern.
I have nothing to do with any part of the Whore or her daughters. (I did that back in my young, foolish years)
I now follow The Way completely.
Were you familiar with Yehova’s word, you’d know HOW to believe it.
>> “His body, of course....but nHe didn’t expect the Apostles to take a bite out of His arm, so He gave them His body in the FORM of consecrated bread....pretty easy for GOD to do.” <<
.
Wow, consecrated bread!
It was a very ordinary loaf of Barley bread.
What he was requesting was their remembrance of the sacrifice he was about to make for the healing of their bodies through the stripes lain upon his.
>> “Christ was a creature” <<
.
Sorry, no.
Yeshua the creator was not created.
so, let's see, you are neither a Catholic nor a protestant.....but you claim Christianity.
I love that...it means you can make up all your own rules, interpret scripture according to "editor-surveyor" it is so much easier that way, no rules, not having to pay attention to what scholars over the last 2,013 years have had to say, and that way you are always right....who can challenge what you say........kind of like EVERY other man that invented a "denomination"....do it my way, I am right!!! a new denomination is born maybe the Edsurs!
He was born of as woman, he was raised by human parents, he ate breakfast, lunch and supper, he dressed in clothing, he used the restroom facilities, he felt pain, he shed blood ......and we can't call him a creature.....He was all God and All man....ie: a creature....a human being...FULLY, and if not, then his mission on Earth was worthless.
>> “I love that...it means you can make up all your own rules...” <<
.
I’m sure that you know that is nonsense!
I follow the rules that your pagan ‘church’ rejected, the rules set out by Yeshua in his spoken words copied down by his disciples that witnessed those words. Those same words against which you contend here daily.
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