‘A sacred space’: Playwrights discuss the role religion plays on stage

In the opening scene of Sarah Ruhl’s play “Letters From Max, a Ritual,” which has been playing at the Signature Theatre in New York since February, the award-winning playwright describes the moment poet and former student Max Ritvo first walked into class.

“It was as though an ancient light bulb hovered over his head, illuminating the room,” she explains.

Based on her nonfiction book about the friendship she shared with the late Mr. Ritvo, who died of illness at age 25, Ms. Ruhl’s play indeed puts on stage “a ritual” of their conversations. Their exchanges cover creativity, spirituality, and the ways human beings compose meaning out of their experiences of mortality. 

Her play is in many ways a departure from traditional American dramaturgy, says Ms. Ruhl, one of the current playwrights-in-residence at the Signature Theatre. The American stage has too often featured “men yelling at each other and finding the drama in that,” she says. “I’m interested in these moments of quiet interiority and kindness.” 

Last month the Monitor had a conversation with Ms. Ruhl and another of the theater’s playwrights-in-residence, Samuel D. Hunter, about the religious and spiritual themes that pervade their bodies of work, and the ways theater itself is particularly conducive to such themes. 

In Mr. Hunter’s 2010 play, “A Bright New Boise,” which the multi-stage Signature Theatre has also featured the past two months, a middle-aged, conservative, evangelical man named Will is seeking work – and healing from a troubled past – at an Idaho Hobby Lobby store. 

As one of his fellow employees, who wears T-shirts with imprints of profane or startling messages during his work shifts, says to Will: “I’m forcing people to confront words and images they normally avoid. Especially at a place like this.” (Last year’s film version of Mr. Hunter’s 2012 play “The Whale,” directed by Darren Aronofsky, took home two Academy Awards, including one for best actor, earlier this month.) 

“One of my writerly concerns throughout all of my plays has been the tragedy of isolation and the redeeming value of human connection,” says Mr. Hunter. “I think probably every play I’ve ever written is fundamentally about that.”

The playwrights share more about their work in the following conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity. 

Both of your plays explore religious and spiritual themes in such different ways. Do you see the theater as a medium more conducive to such themes? 

Ms. Ruhl: For me, theater is very much a sacred space. I think going back to the Greeks, it was always a place of ritual, of holy rites. And then in the liturgical tradition, looking back at Passion plays and the origins of theater in Europe, it was always deeply embedded in liturgy. So in a way, it’s just very recently that it’s been a secular space.

I think people who are drawn to the theater are sort of true believers in the theater, and I think it’s quite holy to them and a place to contemplate what it is to be alive, what it is to die, what it is to love. And so it’s kind of [a] commons for all of those questions to be asked in a culture where we have fewer and fewer of those common spaces to ask those questions. 

You could call them existential questions or you could call them spiritual questions. I think people are afraid of the word spirituality in the theater historically, but I actually think there’s a bit of a renaissance of really locating those questions in the theater.

Mr. Hunter: I’m really interested in that suspension of disbelief and that faith that an audience has to put in somebody who is – let’s be honest, theater is a bunch of people talking unnaturally loud and facing one direction. There’s a surreality to it that is baked in even when you’re doing the most naturalistic of plays.

And I think that coming together and sitting in a room and witnessing that, and choosing to have faith in the lives of these people, is a kind of artistic leap of faith.

Ms. Ruhl: This idea that faith has so much to do with the suspension of disbelief, I think that’s so true. I think of theater almost as an incarnation of “the word made flesh.” Maybe that’s blasphemous – I was raised Catholic – but I like the idea that now a new actor can embody Max’s language, it feels like a kind of incarnation. His body is not there, but his language is still there, and other bodies can inhabit it.

Are there challenges when writing plays about spiritual and religious themes? There are so many questions about human vulnerability and mortality in your plays. Are there ways in which they also express hope? 

Ms. Ruhl: One thing about Max is, he could discuss the life of the spirit so easily. You know, it was like his version of small talk. And so it was a joy to be with him, even in his darkest hours, because he was very funny, too. 

People might think, “Oh, that must have been so hard to make yourself available to your student during those moments of suffering.” No, it was a delight. He was an absolute delight to share space with because he was funny. He was a genius. And we could talk about anything. So I think that’s hopeful, that a friendship can be found in really dark moments.” 

Mr. Hunter: There is so much joy in “Letters From Max.” I was so surprised after reading it. I was heartbroken, but in this completely uplifting way, which kind of feels like the Christian narrative, right? I mean, the Christian narrative is devastating. It’s crucifixion. But there’s so much joy and resurrection in the end.

I think people have been really reticent to talk about spirituality or religion in these kinds of “secular spaces.” I joke that like every time I have a meeting with a television executive, and they ask me, “What kind of show would you want to make?” I always say, “I want to make a show about evangelical Protestants in America.” And it’s like, they just shut down.

One of the things I’ve realized about myself and my writing over the years is kind of a distinct lack of cynicism, which I feel like we share. I never feel cynical when I’m watching one of your plays, Sarah. I never feel like your plays are judging the characters from a distance, you know, or needling them, and I think maybe there’s a hope and a faith baked into that.

Ms. Ruhl: I resonate so much with what Sam just said, too, about the idea of isolation and connection in all of his work, and also that idea of care and caretaking, which I think you could call Christian, you could call it humanist, you could call it what you will. I feel a lot of tenderness and gentleness in Sam’s work, which also is hopeful to me.

I guess another thing I might mention about “Letters From Max,” as a formal thing there’s the letter-writing exercise we have in the lobby during intermissions [in which people share their experiences with terminal illnesses or encounters with people meaningful to them]. And I’ve gotten a couple extraordinary letters, and then heard about some letters other people have gotten that they wrote in the lobby.

It’s about the value and beauty of caring, and I think that’s embedded in the subject matter of these plays. But also, it’s the force field of what we do in the theater.