Local director Peter Gatt has taken on the challenge of directing a play with heavy religious themes in his own church—the church he grew up in.
“Because I was raised in the church where we’re performing it, I have a very good understanding of how a traditional church pushes their storytelling and how they like their issues brought across,” says Gatt, who took university prep courses at Camosun in 2006 and 2007.
But he recognizes that attendance numbers at churches these days are often decreasing, so he says he’s trying to make the show “edgy and different.” The original movie was set in the ’70s, but Gatt’s show is set in the ’20s, which—much to some churchgoers’ dismay—allows him to change some characters’ gender roles, he says.
“It’s never black and white,” says Gatt. “St. Matthias is a very open-book sort of church; we have a female reverend and I would jump to her defence instantly over anything. There’s some places that think that it’s ridiculous that there’s women preaching. And I would just ask those churches that think it’s sacrilegious to really look at themselves and ask, ‘Is that the message that the saviour would want you to spread?’ I would never chastise or put the onus of something like that on a church; I would simply have them look inward and ask if that’s really the message [they] want to send.”
Gatt says he agreed with the church’s fairly relaxed set of rules he had to agree to to rehearse and perform the show there, and adds that he would do some things differently if he hadn’t been performing in a church he is part of and grew up in.
“There’s very graphic scenes,” says Gatt. “Like, the lashing scene is done any number of ways. [In] The Passion of the Christ with Mel Gibson, they show the absolute raw ruthless side of it. By setting it in the ’20s, we can’t really use fake blood, because in the ’20s that was never an option. It’s possible that they would use pigs’ blood… I’m not really about to bring something like that into my church.”
Gatt says the church’s presence will continue to diminish in society if some churches don’t adjust to the times the way St. Matthias has.
“Until people get out of that old thinking and really look at, ‘How can we do this differently and invite more people in?’, church numbers are going to continue to drop across all places,” he says.
So Gatt takes that stance and translates it directly to the stage, which some churches would not be okay with. He was even originally toying with the idea of casting Jesus as a woman, but, musically, it didn’t work out; if it had, he would have had no problem doing it.
“Some of the singers I have in the show are phenomenal,” he says, “so why would I not let them sing the guy part if they can sing it just as well?”
Jesus Christ Superstar
Various times, until Monday, February 26
$12.50 to $22.50, St. Matthias Anglican Church
ticketrocket.co/event/season/233