Damien
Damien. Written by Aldyth Morris, Starring Joel Braun. Creating Genesis, 24 Jan. 2020, Akokiniskway Gallery, Rosebud.
The story of St. Damien’s heroic sacrifice is familiar to many people who have learned about church history; Catholic and Protestant alike. Honouring the familiarity of the story, the play did not shy away from the audience's understanding that the protagonist dies in service to the lepers of Molokai Island. Instead the one man play, written by Aldyth Morris is unconventionally told by the spirit of St. Damien as he watches his own body transported to his homeland as part of his canonization. This creative method of storytelling is the first indication that “Damien” will not be an expected or conventional “church drama.” Instead Damien wrestles with what it really means to live a life of service to God. Damien himself is not a character who is confident in his decisions, nor is he the type of person a mother would ask their children to emulate. He is dirty, coarse and often gets angry. He struggles honestly with his choices and his role in the Catholic Church. What he doesn’t question for a second is the deep love that Jesus had for the lepers of Molokai Island, and that his calling was to give his life in service to those lepers.
In this way Damien offers a picture of what it must have been like for Christ to come up against the church leadership of his day - the very people that should have supported him were his biggest opponents in the work that he did for the poor and the sick. Like Jesus, Damien did not look or act the way the established church expected, and like Jesus, Damien was condemned for his radical love and carelessness for his own life.
Being raised in a Protestant context I cannot claim to know or understand the Catholic point of view of the story, but it was clear to me that Damien was doing the work of Jesus Christ, even while his church accused him of being selfish and saying that his anger and neglect of his own well being made him a bad priest. The whole play I wanted to offer Damien an encouraging word, to be one of the people who saw his love and the righteous passion that compelled him. It was a jarring experience that challenged me to rethink what I define as “Godly” or “Holy” in my time and context. Would we recognize Christ if he were to come today? What are the measures we use to define a life of faith? What does it really mean to be a person compelled by love? These are just a few of the questions that “Damien” surfaced for me, and when a work of art brings up more questions than it does answers, it is a shining example of how faith and art can converge without compromising one in service of the other.