"Temple" at Aurora Theatre Company

Aurora Theatre Company photo by David Allen

This one takes us back a few years, to 2011, though many of its themes should feel quite contemporary. Aurora is presenting the U.S. premiere of Steve Waters's play, Temple, which depicts St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London under siege by Occupy London. Though the Occupy movement has largely left the popular consciousness, frequent, ongoing protests and conflicts between the wealthy "1%" and the masses are all too current.

So when I read the one-sentence summary, this seemed like a super timely choice for Aurora to make. As it turns out, the play isn't really what I expected, dealing less with the overall conflict of established institutions and privilege versus the teeming throng, and more with the role of The Church (of England) in the modern world. Not that that isn't an interesting and important topic, but not nearly as pertinent in Berkeley, circa 2017.

The Play

The entire play takes place inside a meeting room at the Chapter House across from St. Paul's, where the Chapter (a group of clergy) that administers the cathedral have been discussing how to deal with being Occupied. Occupy London, having been ousted from the nearby London Stock Exchange building, they shifted to nearby St. Paul's, leading the Chapter to close the cathedral for the first time ever.

The play begins the morning after the Chapter has, after long, late debate, voted to reopen, and The Dean (played by Paul Whitworth), who is the head of the Chapter and therefore, head of the cathedral, is trying to figure out how to do that. We soon meet his new personal assistant (Sylvia Burboeck), replacing one who has left due to stress and overwork, as well as the Canon Chancellor (Mike Ryan), one of the other clergy. The Dean, the Canon Chancellor, and the Bishop of London (J. Michael Flynn), who we meet later, are all based on real people and real events from 2011, though the dialogue is fictional.

Ultimately, the play becomes a struggle between the conservative and indecisive Dean and the younger, more worldly and liberal, Canon Chancellor. We see it in small details such as their choices of books, and in the fact that the Dean barely manages his old flip-phone, while the Canon Chancellor shows him videos on his smart phone of Occupy protests being violently expelled around the world. The Bishop serves to exert a bit of pressure from above in the church, while a lawyer from the City (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong) and The Virger (Sharon Lockwood) add pressure from without and within the cathedral itself, respectively.

Something's got to give, and for a while, it feels like it might be The Dean.

The Production

I was pretty eager to see what I thought was a show about the relationship of protesters and protestees. But we have no protesters beyond the sounds outside, just church people in the Chapter House. I'm rather ill-equipped to evaluate a lengthy discussion over internal church politics and policy, so I have to just look at it as I would any other play. So at the outset I guess I could have used a bit more exposition about the events leading up to the present conflict. Bits of it come through in the dialogue, but understanding some of the basics could have helped me along earlier.

And then, well, they do pontificate. I suppose that's authentic, but really, a lot of the dialogue could have been trimmed a bit without losing much. And the scene between the City Lawyer and the Dean is much too long. Directory Tom Ross has paced it such that it doesn't take as long as it might--the lawyer speaks at a rapid, lawyerly clip, and I understand that ratchets up the pressure on the Dean--but really, we didn't need all of that. We got the point long before, and with much less verbiage.

And I really don't understand or believe the character of the Personal Assistant. When she arrives in the morning the Dean is clearly unimpressed and rather dismissive of her, yet in just a few short hours she becomes kind of his confidant and conscience. Obviously she has more depth than we assume at the outset, but there's really no clear development of the character, just...now she's got a different role. I realize that she stands for a good chunk of modernity pressing in on the Dean, but really, that could have been done more artfully.

I should say that the acting is, for the most part, quite good. The three clergymen are quite good and believable. Lockwood is fine, though I find her talent somewhat wasted on the Virger character. And the set is nice enough, though not terribly imaginative, and the sound is a bit off at times.

Bottom Line

Overall I thought the play and production were OK, but unspectacular. Others in our group liked it better than I did. I'm supposed to feel besieged, but we never actually see or feel that, just hear a bit, and with the characters coming and going rather freely, it doesn't seem like they are actually all that constrained. I realize it's the cathedral that's surrounded by the Occupiers, but there really isn't much to indicate that.

Also, it's never really that clear what threat Occupy presents to the cathedral. I mean, it made it through The Blitz, so I don't quite get what they fear from a bunch of camping protesters. Obviously the characters feel the need to protect the sanctity of the structure and resume their worship and rituals. OK, but they don't explain to me why that is at odds with people camping outside.

And at some point The Dean dismisses a protest sign asking "What Would Jesus Do?" But it's pretty clear from my reading that Jesus would have opened the doors and invited the protesters in, but that's not on the agenda here. So perhaps this is the part I find lacking: I don't understand the reasoning behind the Dean's decision making. I understand where he ends up (and I won't tell you where that is), but the reasoning behind it is quite lacking, at least from the audience's side.

Maybe I just need to be steeped in the Church of England to understand the relationship among the clergy, the masses, and the cathedral. But I don't, and the play doesn't really help me with that. I know more about church politics now, but I don't think that's what I was meant to get from this play. Your mileage may vary.

So, ultimately there's some pretty good acting that seems kind of wasted on a play that doesn't really resonate. Maybe when Occupy was still a thing around here, it might have felt more timely. But what I see today is a group of people trying to preserve at least the trappings of their everyday lives while the world is trying to change around them, and although I seem them resisting it, I don't see the result of the struggle. Or is that the message?