TERESA OF AVILA: ONE ACT PLAY DIRECTIONS

TERESA OF AVILA: ONE ACT PLAY DIRECTIONS:

This one act play is performatively composed of inter-media elements which, through their repetition,create an atmosphere of relaible solidity and peace.

ELEMENTS:
VIDEO: Throughout the play,an overhead screen projects video images of "Theresa" lip-syncing the text.And where it says pause, "Theresa" demonstrating what penances not to do."Jesus" uses hand gestures to "explain" or sign the Sacraments.
AUDIO:Audio is a pre-recorded tape of the text, so the "actresses and actors" are free to move meditatively and visually without having to "speak" lines. STAGE: Stage is illuminated theatrically by a circle of votive candles but alsolit to illuminate the seven actions of the actresses and actors.
ACTIONS: Fourteen "Carmelite"nuns,and TERESA, very formally and ornately costumed demonstrate the quality of each of the seven scenes of the play.
SCENE 1:They enter carrying a long table, fruit and chairs.Sit down and eat slowly for scene one. FIRST PAUSE, BAPTISM , : Nuns leave, "Jesus" enters, walks through the audience, blessing all with Holy Water from a long branch. He leaves when Baptism is described.
SCENE 2: Fourteen nuns and Teresa enter,seven on stage left, seven on stage right,coming toward each other,imitating the gestures of the Visitation. SECOND PAUSE, COMMUNION: Nuns leave slowly, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water. SCENE 3:Nuns and Teresa enter with a very large rope.Seven pulling from one side, seven from the other.They play tug of war.Teresa goes from side to side.They make real sounds of exertion. THIRD PAUSE: Nuns leave, Jesus enters and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE 4, MATRIMONY: Nuns enter with flowing white veils over their heads walking one by one toward Jesus who is mid-stage but raised on a flower dias.They prostrate to him and then get up to receive a ring on their finger from Jesus. FOURTH PAUSE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes into the audience,blessing all.
SCENE FIVE, PENANCE: Nuns enter, all are talking on blinking cell phones, and change phones with each other, running around the stage, but really calling real people in their lives, sharing the conversation with the other "nuns." The calls are to someone they love or someone they need to give forgiveness to so the reality factor is very high here inthis scene. PAUSE FIVE: Nuns leave and Jesus goes to another part of the audience and blesses all with Holy Water.
SCENE SIX,Holy Orders: Fourteen nuns come into the space with fourteen brooms but each one is wired to glow in the dark as it moves. The nuns"work" the space and the colorform the brooms, illuminates the stage as the nuns "work" their sacred chores. PAUSE SIX: Jesus enters as the nuns leave and he blesses with Holy Water.
SCENE SEVEN, EXTREME UNCTION, SACRAMENT OF THE SICK:Each nun brings a matt to the space, places it in a circular pattern with all of the others,lays down and Jesus enters with fourteen angels who sit next to each nun, laying their "wing" on a different part of the nun's body.Jesus and Teresa stand in the center, walking in a circle,together. ENDING: After the" Let nothing disturb you..." prayer, the audience is invited to come to the stage, in groups of fourteen and lay on the matt for a hands on healing by an "angel"and "nun".
WISHES:I would like the nuns in the play to be actual nuns and the angels, to be brothers or nuns.