12:00:01 am 
The Grand Inquisitor - Religion Used for Political Gain and Power
Categories: UncategorizedWalk into New York Theatre Workshop for The Grand Inquisitor, which NYTW is presenting in collaboration with Theatre for a New Audience, and you'll find that all that's on stage are a small black crate and a black stool that are at opposite corners of a gray square. The piece, adapted by Marie-Hélène Estienne from a section of Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov," consists of one actor (Jake M. Smith) sitting silently on the crate while another, Bruce Myers, clad in a black cassock for most of the production speaks. It may not sound like much, but the piece and production, directed by the legendary Peter Brook, is one of the most intellectually fascinating works to come to New York's stages in a long while.
"Inquisitor" takes place in Seville during the height of the Spanish Inquisition. Myers plays the cardinal Grand Inquisitor who has arrested Christ (Smith), who has returned to Earth and performed miracles in front of grateful and worshiping Spaniards. His presence brings the cardinal to ask "Why, then, have you come to disturb us?" For just under an hour, the cardinal goes on to describe how the Catholic Church has worked to undo the damage done by Christ when he first appeared in human form. The cardinal believes Christ's gift of free will and choice in religion to be more of a punishment to mankind than a blessing, and explains how the church's work over 15 centuries has been to make men and women happier by removing the onus of choice from their lives.
It's troubling rhetoric and there's more. The cardinal goes on to describe how torture and other methods employed by the Inquisition and the Catholic Church in general have been about destroying a sense of freedom.
What's most disturbing in "Inquisitor," though, is how palatable it all sounds in Myers' delivery. The actor never plays the cardinal as a villain. Instead, he plays the cardinal as a rather matter-of-fact man with total conviction in what he's saying. Here is a man who rarely raises his voice despite his growing consternation with Christ's silence (Smith's concentration on his fellow's performer's words and movements only draws theatergoers further into the piece). Gestures are used with care and it's hard not to be mesmerized by this piece of almost businessman-like oratory.
Audience fascination, of course, is the point of "Inquisitor." The artists have created a piece which draws audiences almost into agreement with reprehensible tenets and practices, Brook and Estienne are asking theatergoers to contemplate the ways in which religions can be perverted for political means. As an election day approaches, it's an important lesson to be reminded of.
Brook's production, lit with nuance and care by Philippe Vialatte, never provides any theatrical pyrotechnics, but that doesn't matter. This is a work that shatters through words and delivery alone.
---- Andy Propst
The Grand Inquisitor plays at New York Theatre Workshop (79 East 4th Street). Performances are Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2 and 8pm; and Sunday at 3 and 7pm. Tickets are $75.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com. Further information is available online at www.nytw.org or www.tfana.org.
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