By Ada Tseng

Lodestone Theatre's new play, One Nation, Under God, gives us the story of a tragic hero in modern times and dares to explore the disastrous reactions one might have today, if certain mystical elements of the Bible came true before our very eyes.

In Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as a test of his devotion. What if He didn't stop him? Simple question, with a potentially loaded response.

Lodestone has embarked on a comprehensive spiritual exploration with their plays this year. Their last production, The Golden Hour, followed a woman dealing with personal tragedy, trying to figure out faith's role in repairing and explaining her world. While it decidedly sidestepped any traditional, overly-simplistic happy endings, the critical and commercial hit definitely had a more comfortable feel to it. Church, while not the answer for all, serves as a potential safe haven. And the laid-back basketball-playin' pastor delivering monologues made it seem like everything just might be alright.

On the surface, Lodestone's latest play One Nation, Under God appears to be the antithesis of The Golden Hour. Touted as its darker, more disturbing counterpart, One Nation, Under God revolves around a man, Paul Kim (played by Ryun Yu), who believes that a higher power has chosen him to commit a horrific act of violence in order to bring about man's salvation. Dennis Dun (The Last Emperor) plays the priest who Paul turns to in his moment of crisis. But the play is less the devil to The Golden Hour's angel, and more its own entity: a tale of a man being confounded by supernatural, soul-crushing decisions.

In this current climate where religion and terrorism are hot buttons of discussion, this is dangerous, sensitive territory to mess around with. Therefore, writer-director Phil Chung made sure to do the research. The preparation for One Nation, Under God was an untraditional one: Phil gathered a group of collaborators from the Lodestone Theatre Company and offered actors of all levels a chance to act in the production if they committed to a year of research and helped develop the script. For the group of actors who were game -- Ryun Yu, Caroline Le Duc, Brian P. Nichols, Nechelle Fabiana, Kelley Lund, and Jeff Liu -- this method allowed them to be involved in the entire process of creating the show.

(L-R) Ryun Yu, Brian P. Nichols, Caroline Le Duc, Jeff Liu, and Philip W. Chung.

Each of them took a different religion to research, and they met throughout the year to compare notes. They touched upon Mormonism, Christian Science, and Seventh Day Adventism. They studied the psychology of fundamentalism and its connection to violence. They read about specific cases where people commit extreme acts of brutality in the name of God. One of Phil's initial inspirations was Jon Krakauer's controversial Under the Banner of Heaven, which chronicles the Lafferty brothers and their “divinely inspired” double murder of their sister-in-law and her baby. Another example includes Deanna Laney, a mother who stoned two of her sons to death thinking she was carrying out God's will. There were cases where a person thought God was talking to him through the computer. One thought He was communicating through a dog. Sometimes it was through voices or signs.

Even though the group unanimously rejected the idea that God could possibly be telling these individuals to kill people, they discovered that, fascinatingly enough, many of the individuals stick to their stories till the end, truly believing what they did was right. Therefore, while developing the story for the play, it was important that the protagonist was not seen as crazy. Also, it was important that the character was relatable, so that the audience couldn't easily pigeonhole (and therefore discount) him, as “one of them.” It was important that he seemed like “one of us.”

“In contemporary times, it's easy to dismiss stuff like this," says writer-director Phil Chung. "If someone talks to an angel, they're automatically crazy. Yet, people have no problem accepting stories in the Bible -- for example, Moses talking to a burning bush -- as fact. As history.”

For Ryun Yu, the challenge was making the character's journey believable. As a young and bright physicist, the character of Paul embodies the voice of reason. Science trumps religion, and logic trumps faith. However, the arc of the play involves circumstances arising that gradually convince Paul, a skeptic at heart, to believe. To really understand what is at stake if he doesn't follow the commands, and alternately, what beauty he could bring upon humanity, if he does what the Angel (played by Fabiana) says. It's the severe internal struggle that Paul goes through that makes the drama have personal resonance, whether or not one relates to the spiritual aspects of the play.

“For me, it was about being truthful,” says Yu. “There's always a part of you that doesn't want to deal with things like murder. But when you're in character, you start to believe it. Then when I'm rehearsing, I start sounding like a raving lunatic. And I'm not trying to be like that, but I can't help it. You feel crazy.”

“Often we can create lines and compartmentalize people,” says De Luc, who plays Maddy, a beautiful, pure Christian girl that Paul falls for. “We say, ‘This is what Utah is doing. This is what the Middle East is doing. I have my world, and I don't have to brush elbows with anyone else if I don't want to.' It's easy not to question and to create an incubator for yourself. But what's great about this play is that it creates questions.”

One of the questions that it had the actors asking was -- to what extent do I believe?

“I think it's a very appropriate play within the world's circumstances,” says Nichols, who plays a more conservative priest in the play. “To acknowledge that faith is great and it gives us hope, but at the same time, there is a ridiculous length that it can take you. And if you go into things with blind faith, as a zealot … if you crash into the Twin Towers, that's not OK.”

“You see the headlines in the newspaper, and you can look at the facts, but when you see a play, you add a human element,” says Chung. “Religion has such a great impact in how we live in this country. I wanted to show differing perspectives, even within the religious circles, to make the points of view more vivid and forceful. Great drama is all perspectives colliding with each other. It creates a whole different level of emotional resonance.”

Tackling religion in a creative outlet is often a tricky line to navigate, because of the inherent polarizing nature of the topic. But Lodestone, to their credit, have avoided the black and the white on both occasions and shown people who might have been leery of “religious plays” how religion can breed compelling drama, without having underlying conversion and/or devil-worshipping messages. Instead, One Nation, Under God plays with our conventional ideas of life and death, challenges our ideas of history, asks us to fathom what it's like realizing your fundamental beliefs are wrong, and makes us understand the true meaning of sacrifice -- regardless of whether we understand or agree. Hopefully, if they do their job right, the audience will empathize with the tragedy of Paul Kim, without judgment.

One Nation, Under God
Lodestone Theatre
August 5-27, 2006
Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm
www.lodestonetheatre.org

Published: Thursday, August 3, 2006