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This tour de force of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of Mary will be forever transformed. Victory Gardens presents the Midwest Premiere of THE TESTAMENT OF MARY.
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This woman who we know from centuries of paintings and scripture as the docile, loving, silent, long-suffering, obedient, worshipful mother of Christ becomes, in Toibin’s searing evocation, a tragic heroine with the relentless eloquence of Electra or Medea or Antigone. Mary judges herself ruthlessly (she did not stay at the foot of the Cross until her son died-she fled, to save herself), and is equally harsh on her judgment of others.
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She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel. In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. She does not agree that her son is the Son of God nor that his death was “worth it ” nor that the “group of misfits he gathered around him, men who could not look a woman in the eye,” were holy disciples. Colm ToibIn's portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Gospel-her keepers, who provide her with food and shelter and visit her regularly. She has no interest in collaborating with the authors of the Provocative, haunting, and indelible, Colm Tóibín’s portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. 'The Testament of Mary' is a very simple - one might say classical - tale, showing how violence, even. Despite the production's distractions, audiences will too.Provocative, haunting, and indelible, Colm Tóibín’s portrait of Mary presents her as a solitary older woman still seeking to understand the events that become the narrative of the New Testament and the foundation of Christianity.In the ancient town of Ephesus, Mary lives alone, years after her son's crucifixion. 1 of 3 Colm Toibin Phoebe Ling Show More Show Less 2 of 3 The Testament of Mary. "I remember everything," Mary says, her voice growing strained and harsh on that last word. Perhaps this bustle represents a woman trying to distract herself from the horrors of her memories but all the antic movement gives the script a lulling sameness, at least until the terrible confessions of the finale. Warner keeps Shaw constantly busy: arranging props, moving furniture, changing in and out of clothes – at one point stripping off entirely. But it sometimes seems as though Warner, her longtime collaborator, doesn't entirely trust her or the material. The play is a workout for Shaw, a searing and versatile actor. Click Here to buy The Testament of Mary tickets. Mary seems at once a Nazarene matron and a modern widow. The Testament of Mary Overview - The BEST Broadway source for The Testament of Mary tickets and The Testament of Mary information, photos and videos.
#THE TESTAMENT OF MARY TOIBIN FULL#
Tóibín's language, while literary, is never unplayable, and though Mary is remarkably silent in the New Testament, he gives her a full and often sardonic voice, as when she describes the disciples as "misfits, only children like himself, or men without fathers, or men who could not look a woman in the eye". If others have gone on to hail her son as perfect, divine, the saviour of the world, that doesn't lessen her grief at having seen him tortured and killed, "splayed against the sky". What Shaw and Tóibín do offer is one woman's anguished revelation of the sufferings she and her son endured. It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girronted by a terrible dilemma a devastating choice between duty and one great love. Colm Tibn, primarily a novelist, and David Hare, playwright and screenwriter, have bravely ventured into this fraught territory to provide their own perspectivesTibn reimagining the voice of Mary, Hare delving into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the inside out. I suppose some could call the work blasphemous but that would indicate a failure to acknowledge the discrepancies among the Gospels themselves. Connected by locale, separated by time: Colm Tibn’s The Testament of Mary and David Hare’s Via Dolorosa. Once everyone takes their seats, Shaw re-emerges wearing rather more ordinary clothes – a black tunic over rolled dungarees – and begins her monologue.