Osler's Razor

Here in Minneapolis there is a place that is a little hard to describe.  The Bryant Lake Bowl is part bar, part hipster restaurant, part bowling alley, and part live theater.

The theater is directly adjacent to the bowling alley, and the soundproofing is... well, I think hipsters installed it.  Which means that when you see a play there, you also hear all the sounds that go with people bowling.  And, inevitably, that means you are sitting there in the theater wondering if it might not be a better evening to be bowling than to be watching this particular play.

I like bowling.  I'm not good at it, but I enjoy it.  That said, last night when I went to see Tom Ward's 31 Plays at the Bryant Lake Bowl, I never once thought I would be better off bowling.

The play, featuring Tom and his wife Sherry, hit pretty close to home.  It centered around Jesus problems, Baylor, Minneapolis culture, and drinking, in about that order of importance.  Needless to say, these are all things I have had on my mind lately.  This is stuff I know.  I have been working on a book about the Trial of Jesus and the fascinating cast of characters associated with that, and there was a certain continuity to my day.

Though a lot of the play would be construed by some as "anti-religious," I would never describe it that way.  It was an honest, painfully honest, revelation by someone about their own faith, a revelation that showed ambivalence, doubt, and (sometimes) rejection.  What truly honest discussion of faith wouldn't include those things?  In truth, the play served the same function as the very best church services-- the ones that tell a story, the kind of story that troubles you deeply, hits close to home, and demands honesty, ambivalence, doubt, and rejection.

That probably isn't a mistake.  Ward grew up with storytelling in church the way that Aretha Franklin grew up with singing in church-- it formed and shaped the tools, which could then be used for other things.