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"The Oath" part of Playhouse Tulsa's "The Origins Project"
Published: 10/8/2011 1:50 PM
Last Modified: 10/8/2011 1:50 PM

It might seem an odd way to spend an evening or an afternoon — watching and listening to actors reading aloud a play that is not thought to be finished.

But staged readings of new plays — as Playhouse Tulsa is doing this weekend under the umbrella title “The Origins Project” — are an integral part of making theater.

A script is words on a page that are designed to be spoken aloud. No matter how much work the writer puts into crafting those words, he or she still needs to hear actors give voice to those words for the writer to know if the speeches, the conversations, the story, the characters will truly come to life on a stage.

Staged readings are also important, because they involve the audience in a more direct way than a conventional staging of a play. Audience members usually have the chance to comment on the play after the reading, which can help the playwright polish the script into a more complete, more effective work of theater.

Playhouse is presenting five works this weekend in “The Origins Project,” and is taking the idea of “audience participation” a step farther — depending on audience responses, the company will include one of these works in a full production as part of its 2012-2013 season.

It’s a smart idea — it gives Playhouse’s audiences a greater sense of ownership in the company and the shows it presents, and that in turn should help develop greater interest in discovering and supporting new works.

Because of all that is going on this weekend in the arts in Tulsa, I could attend only one of the “Origins Project” plays: Friday night’s performance of “The Oath: A New Southern Gothic Play” by Jacqueline Goldfinger.

Goldfinger’s play is set in a small Florida town in 1933, the action taking place in a crumbling antebellum mansion. It’s the home of the Rev. Tate, a preacher whose influence goes far beyond the confines of the local church.

The Rev. Tate, however, hasn’t been seen for some time, leaving his daughter Ophelia (Rebekah Peddy) to act in his behalf — dispensing biblical advice, providing words of solace to the despairing, and pocketing a good portion of the donations to the ministry in order to keep the household going.
Her efforts are assisted by the family’s longtime housekeeper Deck (Courtneay Sanders), and undermined by the outrageous behaviour of her sister Cebe (Cassie Hollis), who spends most of her evenings being extremely “friendly” with some of the town’s least savory male citizens.

Into this situation comes Joshua (David A. Lawrence), a young and idealistic young minister whose own calling was greatly influenced by the writings of the Rev. Tate.

Ophelia envisions Joshua as a possible successor to her father, while Joshua wants to funnel the ministry’s efforts more toward bringing the gospel to the migrant workers and the local poor than placating the pieties of church’s citified congregation, typified by Mrs. LeCroix (Kara Staiger), who uses her husband’s ownership of the local newspaper and his position as president of church’s board to wield her own sort of influence.

Goldfinger does an exceptional job of portraying this milieu — the influence a church can have in the political and social life of a small Southern town, the dynamics between sisters who have their own ideas about “what Daddy would have wanted,” the way women have to circumvent social mores and expectations to achieve some measure of control in their lives.

The characters are vividly portrayed through the language, although Joshua’s brief sermons do not have the sort of music one would expect of a Southern preacher, especially the David and Goliath speech, which should build like an aria into a final ecstatic explosion. Lawrence did the best he could to do this, but the words he had to say let him down.

The Southern Gothic elements of the play, when they come, aren’t all that surprising — which isn’t necessarily a problem. What is more troubling is that Goldfinger does not make clear what is at stake in this story, how the events as they play out cost the characters.

It could be that Goldfinger’s intention was to tell a story about how any kind of idealism can be easily undermined with a little more and touch of power, and therefore the ambiguity of the ending — as it was presented Friday — is what she wants.

But because so much is going on the play — the subtle corruption of Joshua, the possible redemption of Cebe, the always pertinent issues of greed versus need, of prejudice and love, of faith and finances — that audiences might want some kind of more concrete resolution.

Perhaps, in a full staging, these issues could be resolved, with visual elements (clothing, staging, lighting, movement, expressions) that underscore, or even undermine, the words being said.

“The Oath” is a fine play, well-written with elements of sharp humor and pathos, with finely crafted characters and a good sense of time and place. It’s probably one draft away from being a great play.

“The Origins Project” concludes with Cody Daigle’s “Providence” at 2 p.m. Saturday, and “Barrier Island” by David Stallings at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, in the Doenges Theatre of the PAC, 110 E. Second St. For tickets: 918-596-7111, tulsaworld.com/mytix.



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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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