Eating, drinking and being Mary

It’s based on the Man Booker-nominated novel by Colm Toibin and it was nominated for best play at this year’s Tony awards, but its New York run was curtailed due to an aggressive reaction by a segment of the public (its central theme is the angst felt by Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her regrets about the way she reacted during certain key moments in her son’s life). Furthermore, this production’s programme features a little box notifying audiences of an “R18+” age restriction.

Only when the lights come up on Patricia Boyer’s Mary, lying in a bath, is it possible to start formulating your own opinion on the piece, and an early thought might be: “What is all the fuss about?”.

The theme is unavoidably controversial, but it takes a dedicated sort of insularity to proclaim the play blasphemous or unrealistic without, you know, watching the thing. There’s a bit of nudity, but its role is more in establishing the everyday earthiness of Mary than in providing shock value. Similarly, mundane details like nibbling an apple and sipping a rough cup of plain water give the lie to the woman thinking herself anything other than a normal member of society (you could call it the “eat, drink and be Mary” argument).

Boyer’s expected to come out all emotional guns firing, a tough ask given that the production in the Mandela Theatre upstairs is a big musical number, and beats and snippets of melody sneak through the soundproofing every now and then. Given the context, hearing a clear line from the chorus of Hey Jude could have really thrown the actress off her rhythm, but she managed well.

The intensity required to play the character – this is a Mary who’s angry with her lot, being watched by minders and having, she feels, her side of the story largely ignored – requires that Boyer begin in rather declamatory style, but as the piece progresses, she manages to interpret her character’s passion (if you’ll excuse the reference) in an ever more poignant,

effective way. You even find yourself feeling for the late Joseph – represented by a chair kept symbolically empty – as an imagining of a possible reading between the lines of Scripture unfolds.

The Testament Of Mary is not an argument for the Bible being false and another story entirely being the actual truth, and it doesn’t set out to be (despite its author being a lapsed Catholic). It’s one perspective on the oft-overlooked humanity of a woman who is often only seen as a figurehead; a statue on an altar or in a shrine, or a stylised face on an icon decorated in gold leaf. It makes many of its points very effectively – parents in the audience will identify with the pain of seeing a child in trouble and failing to intervene in time – and elsewhere provides interesting food for thought without ripping the ideological heart out of anyone’s worldview.

Patricia Boyer as Mary

The only potentially directly discomfiting aspect of the work is the way Mary/Boyer ignores the fourth wall and addresses audience members with her forthright opinions. It’s worth asking, though, if this is a result of people balking at the unexpected intimacy that technique engenders rather than disagreeing with anything that’s being said.

This is a brave, compact play, and it’s wonderful to have such a piece fresh off Broadway, allowing local theatre lovers to be part of an intriguing conversation as it emerges, rather than some years after the fact.

The Testament Of Mary will be performed at Space.com, Joburg Theatre, Braamfontein, until October 6