Were you ever in a high school or college play? In the only school play I’ve ever been in, my high school drama teacher tried desperately to get me to understand the value of "staying in character." Mr. Sherlock was a patient man and certainly understood and loved theatre. But he didn’t have much to work with in our little high school. No one else auditioned for the role I got, so he was stuck. Thankfully for everyone involved, it was a pretty minor role, and the other actors could make up for my on-stage foibles.But I have carried one lesson from high school drama class with me into adult life: Being your character is more important than perfectly knowing the script. Now that doesn’t mean that the script was unimportant, but Mr. Sherlock emphasized that beyond everything else, a great play was dependent on "the believability of the actor." In essence he was teaching us that you must so embody the role that the audience gets caught up in the sense that they are watching real life.
One of the stories surrounding the passing of young and talented actor, Heath Ledger, who played The Joker in the most recent Batman film, The Dark Knight, was that Jack Nicholson warned Ledger about the role. Nicholson played The Joker in 1989 and spoke of the awful toll it took. New York Daily had this to say after Ledger’s untimely death in the weeks leading up to the films much anticipated debut:
"It's going to be tough, because The Joker is such an indelible character, and Heath was such an indelible actor. It could be tough to disassociate ourselves from reality."
It is so interesting that in theatre the idea is to completely embrace a roll, even though you know going in that the role is temporary.
So what does this mean for us? In our 40-Day Journey toward a Life of Active Compassion, we are pursuing a transformation of how we see, feel, and touch our world. We want to be filled with the compassion of Christ so that we see with His eyes, feel with His heart, and take action on behalf of others in such a way that they feel the love of God through us.
But this is not theatre. This is not a temporary role we are playing. Our life of active compassion is someone we are becoming. We are emerging into the fullness of Christ living in us and through us.
But one lesson from theatre does apply: Our words and actions must be reliable and believable. People need to hear in our voice, see in our eyes, and experience through our actions that we truly do care about them and the outcome of their lives. This is not theatrics. This is about being transformed into the true character of Christ Jesus who lives in us by his Spirit.
- Don McLaughlin
