Volunteers from New Hampshire Voice of the Faithful and Catholics for Moral Leadership invited Chicago's Bailiwick Repertory Theater Company to perform in Manchester. "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed" is a docu-drama about the clergy sexual abuse crisis in Boston. New Hampshire Public Radio's Raquel Maria Dillon has this report.
This isn't the usual theatrical fare at the Palace Theater:
GANNON :22 He started to tell me he was sorry about my father's death. He started to pat me on the leg. you know. Sorry to hear about your father's death. Before I knew it, his hands were up my shorts and he was grabbing me!
That's a Chicago actor, Patrick Gannon, playing Patrick McSorley, one of Father John Geoghan's accusers. McSorley said he was abused when he was twelve-years-old. He died this past winter at the age of 29. Those are his actual words, recounting the incident years later.
In fact, all of the words in "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed" are taken from Bernard Cardinal Law's depositions and from the Archdiocese's files. Playwright Michael Murphy studied the thousands of pages of document and stitched together exerpts to tell the awful stories of Catholic priests John Geoghan and Paul Shanley, their many young victims, and the Church's negligence.
Mark Steele plays the victims' attorney, Roderick MacLeish, Jr.; Jim Sherman plays the cardinal; and Naomi Landman plays a series of women, from mothers to nuns, concerned by the behavior of certain priests.
PLAY :29 FADE UP AND UNDER
LAW I had no knowledge in 85 of allegation against Shanley of having abused a child!
STEELE my question was...
LAW I was not aware of any limitation
LANDMAN April 19th, 85, Dear Cardinal, Fr Shanley made outrageous statements...
In Chicago and Boston, Sherman's portrayal of Cardinal Law provoked hisses and cat-calls from the audience. But last night in Manchester, some people in the audience boo-ed for a different character.
RYBARCZYK :16 Father John B. McCormack, Archdiocese of Boston. (booo!) April 17th 1985, Dear Mrs. Higgs, Archbishop Law received you letter. He is sorry to hear that you were disturbed by a talk given by Paul Shanley.
Before he was named Bishop of New Hampshire, then-Father John McCormack served as Cardinal Law's Delegate and fielded complaints about sexually abusive priests for the Boston Archdiocese. In the play, he amounts to a bit part, a handful of lines, culled from his letters to Law about Father Paul Shanley.
RYBARCZYK :12 FADE UP AT If we place him on full disability, we would have no contact with him, and we would have no idea what he was doing. Fr. John McCormack. AUDIENCE RUMBLES
Father McCormack is played by actor Patrick Rybarczyk (rih-BARH-chehk). He says he's enjoyed delivering his lines with some subtlety.
RYBARCZYK :14 It's changed quite a bit since day 1 of rehearsal. We went into it thinking the dialogue from him. There could be a sense of him being a good guy. As we heard from more people we realized it's quite the opposite.
Rybarczyk says the cast got a lot of input from lawyers and victims of clergy sexual abuse throughout their rehearsals.
After each performance, the cast leads a question and answer session. In Manchester, the audience was less interested in the actors' craft. They wanted to talk about reforming the Church hierarchy, getting Bishop McCormack to resign, and expediting the Attorney General's audit of the Diocese. Glen Bergeron of Greenland:
BERGERON :17 I was really moved by your performance. You guys did an excellent job. APPLAUSE. My question is, can you take this to the Vatican and make the pope sit in the front row and feel the same emotions we did?
Producers want to take "Sin: A Cardinal Deposed" to New York City first. In the meantime, it's playing at the Regent Theater in Arlington, Massachusetts through Sunday. For NHPR News, I'm RMD.
