Well, i might as well just tell the story.
On Thursday, during my fourth block class, which is Theatre IV, my teacher, Mr. Richards, told us about his plan for the next day, which was going to be a complicated and intense improv exercise that would take most of the day. He called it “The Plague” simply, and instructed anyone in the class who wasn’t willing to take it seriously to not show up the next day. I mostly forgot about it until third block on Friday, when Katie reminded me. This is pretty much the exercise instructions:
Lights go out and find a place to lay on stage with knees up. Mr. Richards brings you through a few breathing exercises for a relaxing meditation time period.
He explains out instructions for the exercise while we were doing this which were to first, think of a character in Europe in the 13th century, during the Plague. A wife, a young child, a blacksmith, a baker, a begger, it didn’t matter. Just pick one.
He turns the lights on and we slowly get up off the stage and silently make our ‘town’
After a while, he begins to call out the stages of the plague.
First, someone gets the sniffles.
Then coughing begins.
Life goes on.
A fever hits.
A spot or two begin to form
Once they have a red ring around them, the person with them knows they have the plague.
they begin to itch
more develop
they begin to cause intense pain
your throat becomes raw and sore-covered from the coughing
and then, after a good long while of contagious agony, you die.
Sounds kind of crazy? Maybe a little dumb? That’s what i thought. So as i lay on the stage, breathing on eight counts and clearing my mind and such, i started thinking (TYPICAL) about something that has been bothering me and been laid on my heart a whole lot lately. Life without Christ. Something that has scared me a lot lately. Because i don’t understand it but i am certain it is real. And I’m surrounded with it. I love a whole heck of a lot of people deeply who live their lives without Christ. And though it doesn’t make me feel superior, better, or snooty towards them, it breaks my heart. In Christ i have found fullness of joy. It’s the only source of joy i have ever truly had and trust me…i’ve looked every possible way before i found it to be Him. So, i picked my character. I decided to be a baker. A 50-something older women who is very bitter towards everyone; people, her town, and religion. But she works for a baker shop, so she frequents the streets a lot to deliver, but she is never “with” the people. She is alone, friendless, and content in her bitterness. And that’s who i was when i stood up. I walked over to downstage left and set up my “shop.” I baked pies over and over again with pantomime, ignoring the beggars who came to my door. When i took to the streets, i moved quickly and hurried back home. I’m not saying i think everyone without Christ is ReMoTeLy like this, it just got me personally into a character i’m not so familiar with. And boy did it, it actually depressed me and made me sad.
And then the plague came. I caught the sniffles from Michelle when she came to my door and i slammed it in her face. It was fine. i went along my monotonous work the same. And then the coughing started to come and a fever began to come on. I kept trying to bake pies, but my insides were killing me. It was so strange because i felt so much in character, that my insides DID really hurt. This was a similar sensation shared by my classmates i found out later. And then i noticed the rash and the red ring around it. It was my death sentence. It was the end of a miserable life with no hope from then on. And then i fell. I was in such despair and in so much pain from coughing and itching, i cried out in agony. I was falling to a place where i could never rise from again. It was the end of it all. I could feel tears running down my face as i clung on to life for the last few minutes. My insides burned with sadness and i could feel my heart breaking. This is what it will be like for all of those people when they die without Jesus. That feeling caused me to cry openly and hard. Slowly, my movements began to slow and my cries became much less audible. i died in an awkward side position, feeling i wouldn’t feel truly dead if i died on my back. It was so intense. Richards had instructed four guys to go around and pick up the dead and move them to a pile in the center of the stage. Laying there with my eyes closed waiting to be lifted was insane. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on my passivity in presenting the Gospel to people DAILY. Because for many people, just like this, tomorrow will not come. My feelings weren’t coming from guilt, they are coming from a passion that God is building in my heart for people who have not experienced completion in Christ. Laying with the dead showed my how selfish i am in not caring about people as i should.
We all talked afterwards. It affected many of the people in our class profusely. i didn’t talk much about my choice in character, but i plan to talk to my youth pastor/drama teacher, Richards about it later. It was a crazy way to start a weekend that has shaped out to be the most insane weekend of my life, i think…
daily. yes. daily.