By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
“The Harvest” opens with a call to prayer.
“In Jesus’ name we pray.”
The five young people gathered in a church basement in Idaho Falls, start praying. Soon they are speaking in tongues, and one young man, Josh (Braden Evans), is rolling on the floor. Another young man Marcus (Logan May) corrects Denise (Hurricane Harrington).
“You’re doing it again,” he scolds. We learn later she is his wife.
Such details unspool over the next two hours. The audience stays fixed on this room riveted by these characters. They are young evangelical Christians just a few days away from heading off to do mission work in an unnamed country in the Middle East. While the setting is gritty, even dingy, and packed with everyday details, the narrative underpinnings are Biblical, like rough drafts of parables.
The BGSU Department of Theatre and Film is staging “The Harvest,” directed by Sara Lipinski Chambers, in the Eva Marie Saint Theatre opening tonight (Thursday, Oct. 20) at 8 continuing this weekend on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and next weekend Oct. 27-29 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in advance at BGSU.edu/The-Arts/Tickets or at the door.
Four members of the group are going on missions for four months. But Josh plans to spend the rest of his life as a missionary.
This makes him a source of inspiration for the others, and additionally a source of pride for Ada (Maddie Hatton) the cheerfully manipulative leader of the group, and the only veteran missionary. The church has much invested in having Josh follow his vision, she reminds him.
Tom (Dannie Ellis), however, doesn’t want him to make that commitment. The two are very close friends, and Tom says his life will be bleak when he returns from his mission and Josh will not be there for him.
Tom is the one who introduced Josh to the church when they were young teens. The church provided solace for Josh, who was raised by his alcoholic father after his mother abandoned the family. Tom also is motherless. His mother died. His father found religion and is in constant contact with his son, urging him to deal with his anxiety with prayer. Tom doesn’t always want to pray. Both he and Josh find solace in classical music. Tom discovers Oliver Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” (a snippet plays before the lights go up). But the modern piece only seems to aggravate Josh.
Josh’s sister, Michaela (Madison Ellis), also shows up to try to dissuade him from going.
Their father had died just a few weeks before – she did not make it for the funeral.
She ran off at 16, and ended up in Eugene, Oregon. She developed an addiction but has been in recovery for several years.
Even as a child she was responsible for her younger brother, and he views her running off as another abandonment.
The plot revolves around the emotional push and pull over whether Josh will indeed leave forever.
Denise and Marcus provide the subplot. We learn that she is pregnant, still in her first trimester, and those in charge including Pastor Chuck (Jarod Mariani) and Ada have decided that given the pregnancy the couple will do office work on the mission instead of directly witnessing to people.
This suits Marcus well. He struggles with even the basics of learning Arabic and the culture he’ll be living in. When he is takes the part of an Islamic man while role playing with Josh, Marcus gets upset because Josh asks him what the names of his family members are, and he cannot come up with believable names.
And he’s concerned about the possibility of violence in what is a war-torn area.
Denise is upset by this change in their mission. This is for her the one chance for service before settling into a domestic role. Harrington delivers a convincing portrait of this very nuanced, quietly conflicted character.
She is the most enthusiastic in praising Josh for his taking on the life of a missionary, and clearly disappointed not to be witnessing her faith to people. Yet, she has a probing mind that questions everything from a tiny detail in one of Ada’s inspirational stories to the most profound issues of faith.
When she role plays, she acts not as a Muslim, but as an atheist. When the simplistic answer to her question, the one provided by Pastor Chuck, falls flat, Ada summarily moves the class on to prayer.
Pastor Chuck makes one appearance late the night before the group is to fly off.
He comes to convince the wavering Josh to go on the mission. Based on revelations that have emerged, we understand why Josh cringes at his presence, and why Tom seems to emotionally wither.
The play ends as it began with prayer – and, I hope this is not a spoiler, a cliffhanger.
Thanks to the skill of the cast we come to know these people and are left with questions, and concern, about their fates.
