"Seeing Beyond Limitations" Peter Rothstein's Sunday Presentation and Play Introduction

This past week (3/14), SJA parishioner and theater director Peter Rothstein delivered a courageously stirring homily that questioned how we interpret the story ending of the popular parable The Fig Tree. There is a gardener and a landowner mulling over whether a fig tree should be cut down. The gardener proposes to leave the tree another year and cultivate and fertilize the ground around it, then see if it will bear fruit. If not, it shall be cut down. The story leaves one hanging. What happens? Rothstein opines a pat optimistic ending where the landowner agrees, the gardener sticks to the plan and the tree bears fruit. But Rothstein proposes that it's really up to us to decide how this story ends. Just like how we live our day to day life. How will we finish the story? We write it every day. But do we see the potential or do we just see the limitation? How does the Church finish our story?

Like his little niece who shuts people out of her room with the words "keep out" marked on her Popsicle cross, Rothstein suggests that we, much like his niece, too often protect ourselves from our irrational fears, allowing our limitations to shut out people we don't understand. He effectively illustrated this point by presenting a scene from his upcoming Theater Latté Da production A Man of No Importance. Singer-Actors Tod Peterson played Alfie, a closeted homosexual with Jonathan Peterson's conservative Father Kenny, and Dieter Bierbrauer's Robbie, a man of the Irish working class. The three reenacted the conflict of a confessional where sin sees no room for guidance, forgiveness or understanding. They end up torn and bewildered with the song "Confession." Singer-Actor Ann Michels lent a stouthearted soprano voice to "Our Father," the second offering, backed by  ten singers, and a haunting Irish arrangement provided by Denise Prosek on piano and Dan Chouinard on accordion.

Terrance McNally's A Man of No Importance takes place in a repressive pre-Vatican II Dublin in 1964. Alfie, a train conductor recites wise poetry to his attentive passengers by day and directs plays in a church basement by night. His passionate community theater troupe recalls the lovable characters from Christopher Guest's hilarious 1997 independent film classic Waiting For Guffman. A lonely and closeted homosexual, Alfie believes that art is for every one and if it's not, it should be. You just have to love who you love in life. Don't expect support from his prudish sister Lily, with whom he lives. She finds his devotion to art and books unseemly and sternly feels that only a wife will take care of her brother's needs.

Oscar Wilde's proverbial wit permeates the play with rich lines like "the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."  Eventually Alfie's earnest staging of Wilde's "Salome," regarded by the Church as "blasphemous" gets shut down. Alfie is left ostracized by the church and loses his employment because of his homosexuality. He soon discovers that it takes the support of his beloved theater troupe to release his shackles of oppression. For Director Rothstein, the play's most illuminating moment of truth comes when Alfie says "Welcome to the world. I am in the world and that should be enough."

Theater Latté Da presents the area premiere of A Man of No Importance: Terrence McNally – Book, Stephen Flaherty – Music, Lynn Ahrens - lyrics

Runs: March 20 - April 17
Thursdays - Saturdays: 8 PM  Sundays: 2 PM
Tickets: $10 - $25

Michael Reinbold, a continuing web reporter, freelances as a writer and banquet caterer. A passionate believer in SJA's mission of social justice and collaborative ministry, Michael is an SJA Choir member, mass reader, Team Oz AIDS rider and Grace House volunteer cook. With an extensive background in theater, photography and fundraising, he relishes all aspects of the arts, staying fit and inspiring and working with people.

Location: The Loring Playhouse
1633 Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis

Peg LaSota comes from a photography background. She now works in the digital world, computer instruction, and with "videography" and the restoration of family films. She is enthusiastic about capturing family memories and preserving them digitally. Along with that, her time is spent with her family and her love for learning Spanish, piano, recorder.....and of course singing with the choir!