March, 2003
Dominic Orlando remembers two important things about his childhood: “I was born on Christmas Day, so for years I thought the party was for me,” and “I started writing plays in grammar school.” And not just any plays, but a series so anticipated at his Catholic school that he had to kill off the two characters in eighth grade to move on artistically.

Today, it comes as no surprise where Orlando has ended up: as the artistic director of a theatre company whose very mission is “to examine the mythological life of America, returning theatre to its original role as a place where society confronts its spiritual self.” On Thursday, March 6, 2003, Orlando will discuss his work in the theatre, specifically the new play he's writing at MacDowell, as well as present a recent one-act directed by Peterborough resident Bob Lawson and performed by his students in the Franklin Pierce drama department. The evening begins at 7:30 pm at the Peterborough Historical Society.

Orlando, who considered becoming a priest, has the cadence of a preacher, not to mention the zeal. But his zealotry is for the reconciliation of the spiritual with the secular. “I think the trinity is a metaphor for the entire person. You've got the father, son, the holy ghost; you've got the mind, the body, and the spirit. And I think one-third of our existence - the spiritual - is not being addressed today. People are hungry for it.” It's here where his voice rises and the zeal takes hold. “Our lives are our callings! And what I find so interesting about Jesus Christ is that he was willing to take his calling all the way to the end. He was willing to die for it. And whether we run a theatre company, a law firm, or a movie studio, there's going to be a moment where we have to confront our lives and decide if we're willing to go all the way: Do I defend the guilty; do I produce the bad movie? Even if not doing it means my career. I think true Christianity is troublemaking. You can't be a ruthless capitalist and then do a half-hour of Tai Chi.”

The play Orlando is writing at MacDowell - Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun - explores today's reckoning between true spirituality and the zealotry often mistaken for it. It tells the story of a young Dominican peasant who returns to his village after three years in the rain forest, convinced God has charged him with a mission: “to heal the rifts between the world's religions, and expose those who have twisted Christ's message to serve their hunger for temporal power.”

Juan Gelion re-imagines Christ's New Testament journey for a modern audience, but instead of wandering through the desert, Juan makes his way from the tropics of South America to the seat of world power: Washington, D.C. Throughout the journey, he confronts hypocrites, performs miracles, and seeks to reconnect Christianity with its radical roots. “America considers itself a Christian nation, but we embrace - and globally promote - a ruthless capitalism that is the antithesis of Christ's teaching. Meanwhile, progressive forces in our country, distrustful of organized religion, have ceded the entire spiritual realm to crackpots and right-wing fanatics.”

While the play may sound operatic, even apocalyptic, it is grounded in the very real politics of today. Juan Gelion targets the growing disconnect between Christian propaganda and bona fide Christian action; the disconnect, in Orlando's view, occurring mainly in American government. But what disturbs Orlando more than leaders espousing Christian cant to promote their candidacies is how quickly Americans believe it. “Fundamentalism isn't just in the Mideast, you know.”

Still, politics isn't the only “theatre” of reckoning in Juan Gelion. Like Christ, Orlando's Gelion is a man more concerned with reaching individual people, a man whose radical nature - and danger - springs from how he inspires the people he meets one by one. “There's that great quote 'before nations change, men must change.' Well, today, people just seem to be capable of taking any message and using it as a club.” Distorting it, he says, to oppress others, to foment prejudice, and most of all to secure their own power. “I have this scene in Juan Gelion where Juan is being stoned for his beliefs, and in the middle of it, he catches a stone and turns it into bread and asks the crowd 'Is it a stone or is it bread?' And I think that's the real question for religion and us. Which one will it be?”