Skidmore does not put on realism plays often. The productions over at JKB lean far more into the mystical and experimental realm of theater — whether that be last semester’s Cabaret, or Let the Right One In from 2017. However, The Harvest, directed by John Michael Diresta and opening Oct. 18, transports actors and viewers alike to real life as its found in a small church in rural Idaho.
For the most part, this play fits the bill of what people have come to expect a non-musical play to be: it’s one room, it takes place in real time, there’s a linear progression, and it depends heavily on the fourth wall. Non-musical plays, as Diresta explains, are “designed to have ways out of this world. A play like this really demands a full understanding of the world under it.”
The Harvest, written in 2017 by Samuel D. Hunter, follows seven Evangelical Christians, four of whom are in their early twenties and preparing to leave on a missionary trip to spread the “good news” of God to a nondescript Middle Eastern location. We’re brought to their church’s basement, and that’s where we stay. For a play grounded in realism, the actual plot is overtaken by these characters and their personal worlds.
When Diresta first read the play, he “found much of the energy is very accessible and very everyday, but yet full of secrets and reliant as much upon the things unsaid as it is upon the things said.”
Which means the actors have been tasked with the ever difficult challenge of making their characters real people. For Nick Leonard ‘20, who plays Chuck, the church’s Pastor, this has been especially unnerving: “It honestly terrified me. I much prefer standing in a giant dark stage running around like a chicken with your head cut off.”
To help the actors become more acquainted with their parts, Diresta focused on table work for the first three weeks. According to Caoilin O’Connor ‘20, who plays Tom, “that way we could have full grasp of our characters’ motivation and what’s going on in their heads throughout the course of the show.”
Some of these deep dives focus on the play’s location in Idaho. While Diresta does this with every play he directs, the realism of The Harvest almost seems to command this intention more. For example, there’s a moment on stage where an actor talks about a drive she took from Eugene, Oregon to Idaho Falls — which would be eleven hours long.
“What do you see on that drive?” Diresta had asked the actors. “What landmarks would she pass? Is it mountainous? Is it arid? And therefore, what is she thinking along the way?”
Throughout the rehearsal process, different professors and community members have been invited in to discuss some of the more pressing themes of The Harvest, including the colonial history of missionary work, toxic masculinity, homo-eroticism, and the female experience within some religious communities.
Audrey Erickson ‘20 plays Denise, one of the three women in the play.
“[Hunter] presents the female existence within a very religious, presumably conservative, male-dominated space. I think he writes a journey through Denise, for me at least, that was a very relatable,” she says.
A lot of Erickson’s work on stage has been adapting to and navigating the changing way male characters treat Denise, the practice of which represents a characteristic of twenty-first century realism. A collection of playwrights are examining “the nuances of everyday life and the tiny moments of both tragedy and miracle that exist in what might be mundanity,” says Diresta.
The reason Diresta directs plays is to, in his words, give voice to the voiceless. With The Harvest, it’s been an ever transforming process.
“When I first read it, the voice of the voiceless that I thought was the most steering in this play was the unspoken queer undertone of it,” he says. “But through continuing to work on it, what I discovered is that it also very brilliantly and successfully gives voice to a variety of relationships to the concept of religion.”
Leonard, O’Connor, and Erickson all mentioned how their characters have become more and more recognizable to them during this process, despite how their experiences may seem foreign to many Skidmore students — with Diresta saying “In many ways, traveling to the evangelical basement feels further away than Germany in 1929,” alluding to his work with Cabaret last semester.
According to Erickson, “a lot of our process has been about unlearning biases, and avoiding generalizations based on the community these actors are from.”
The play’s church exists as a small, financially modest and independently owned church in a rural community. And so through their work, and hopefully on stage, The Harvest production team is careful to not lump all Christian, even all Evangelical Christian, experiences into being a monolithic one.
“While religion is such a huge part of their lives, it does not define them,” explains Leonard. “And I think if there is a wrong way to watch this play, it’s to watch this play thinking of them only as religious creatures and not as human beings.”
The Harvest opens Oct. 18 and closes Oct. 24, but the first three dates are already sold out. All shows begin at 8 p.m., except for Sundays which start at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here.