Canadian touring theatre company Theatre of the Beat hasn’t taken the pandemic lying down.
They might have wanted to, given that the idea of touring theatre runs directly counter to the 3 C’s of COVID-19 – avoiding crowds, close-contact places and confined spaces. But Theatre of the Beat could hardly sit this turbulent time out, given the stark inequities of the pandemic and the spotlight currently trained on systemic anti-Black racism, After all, their purpose is “to catalyze conversations on social justice and its intersection with the beliefs of the communities in which it finds itself.”
Their unexpected solution was to adapt Johnny Wideman and Rebecca Steiner’s Yellow Bellies, a successful stage production, into a three-episode audio drama that can be safely experienced by socially distanced audiences. Yellow Bellies uses verbatim interviews and fictionalized scenes to create an episodic experience that highlights the experiences and public response to Mennonite conscientious objectors during World War II.
After thoughtful transposition to the realm of sound, the stage production takes on the aural corporeality of an old-time radio drama. It has been divided into three 30-minute episodes that are sculpted for socially distanced ears and attention spans. Each episode opens with theme music, production and acting credits and sponsor messages, followed by an opening narrated by reminiscing conscientious objector Rudy Enns, played by Cedric Martin. This opening is then followed by vividly-realized wartime scenes featuring the younger Enns and Johnny Wideman’s fellow objector Alvin Bender, who is Enns’ wingman and confidante. Kimberly Walker’s Mary Lichtl is the third protagonist as a Mennonite nurse and Alvin’s beloved, who cares for the wounded in England during the war. Their scenes are interlaced with musician Joe McLellan’s sumptuous and soulful period music.
The drama opens in winter 1942 with Enns in the complicated – and suspiciously regarded – act of declaring himself a conscientious objector. “What makes Canada unworthy of your dedication?” asks a sarcastic and combative government official. As the episodes progress, the attacks on Enns and Bender become more nuanced and variegated – as does their self-doubt. The critiques are constant and cutting, and their faith.
Under Director Sukhpreet Sangha’s sure hand, Yellow Bellies the Audio Drama is vivid, engrossing and deeply thought-provoking. I was a bit disoriented as scenes shifted – but I quickly caught up and saw that some of my disorientation stemmed from how little I knew about Mennonite conscious objectors during WWII: how they were treated, and the abusive “alternative service” they were sent to up north and out west. The protagonists’ privation and suffering are vividly realized – especially in the third act, where the external and internal price of their faith is devastatingly realized. This anguish cuts deeper for the near-total lack of acknowledgement of it within the world of the drama and our real world beyond the play.
Yellow Bellies The Audio Drama vividly realizes the Mennonite challenge of being “in the world but not of it” at a time when that world was belligerently braying its soul-destroying demands. Listening to it alone on headphones – or sharing it with a distanced group – feels unexpectedly apropos for our time of pandemic, when Public Health asks that we all be in the world as little as possible, despite the major questions of social justice hanging in the balance.
As we navigate our strangely liminal and attenuated pandemic existence, it is vivifying and salutary to immerse in the lush mindscape of Yellow Bellies the Audio Drama. And to draw from it emotions, imagery and provocation that can fortify us against despair – and inspire us to resist.
© Scott Sneddon, SesayArts Magazine, 2020
