Even if you accept the Bible as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Mary had pretty much fallen off the radar by the time Jesus was making a name for himself. In the Gospels, only one terse conversation between mother and son is quoted. How different religions incorporated her post-nativity essence into their theologies are basically back-filled scenarios that artists would later help cement into a collective consciousness.
The notion of Mary as a blank slate is rooted in authenticity, and it's intriguing to imagine how a mother of recognizable dimensions in a real-world scenario would deal with a driven son on a dangerous path, a cult of followers pushing him on, and the pressures to follow a deifying script after his death. Irish playwright Colm Toibin has done just that in Testament, now at ACT, but the dramatic rewards are more limited than the possibilities might suggest.
On a set of little more than a table and some chairs, Mary addresses the audience as if we are just another in a succession of nascent Christians claiming interest in her story, but who are often more interested in steering her toward their version of the story. This time, she tells us, she is determined to give an honest account of her actions and reactions before, during, and after Jesus' crucifixion. It is an arid, bitter tale from an unextraordinary woman determined not to let emotions roil her, at least not while there are any witnesses. That's not an easy world for an audience to enter.
Director Carey Perloff has stripped away the elaborate production gewgaws that marked the play's New York run (then known as The Testament of Mary), and the simplicity on the Geary stage seems a better mirror of Toibin's withholding style. There is integrity in the playwright's approach, forgoing Biblical ornamentation and rendering the dialogue in everyday language that doesn't seem interested even in vulgate poetry.
Canadian actress Seana McKenna, alone on stage for the play's 80 minutes, presents a steely, stoic figure who doesn't so much command attention as she has come to wearily expect it. There aren't many tugs for sympathy in McKenna's performance, and it would be unbearable for both the character and the audience if the physical realities of slow death by crucifixion were offered with anything more than matter-of-fact concentration.
Mary has guardians, or handlers as we would call them today, but she resists and resents the talking points being thrust at her. "What is being written now will change the world," says one of her guardians, and she can either help write the official version or leave it to others to fill in. "The earnestness of those young men repelled me," she says early in the play of Jesus' followers, and she intends to preserve his memory privately, in her own fashion.
And in the end, she reveals the divinity from which she seeks solace, and it is not what you might expect. She earns our respect for her strength of character, and the play for its chilly convictions. But Testament is a play that explicitly does not want our love.
Testament will run at the Geary Theater through Nov. 23. Tickets are $20-$120. Call 749-2228 or go to act-sf.org.