Liturgy and queerness: musical "Bare" addresses faith and church at Catholic boarding school

In the musical "Bare", queer students of a Catholic boarding school search for their place in life. Director Klara Eßer knows these worries well. In the katholisch.de interview, she talks about her work, what role faith plays for her and how important liturgical accuracy is to her on stage (irony alert!).

The sound check is running in the background. It rumbles and booms. Again and again, actors and actresses come through the dressing room - in a few hours, the dress rehearsal for the musical "Bare", which is currently running in Aachen, will take place. Shortly before that, Klara Eßer took some time to talk about her musical project.

Question: Ms Eßer, you are currently performing the musical "Bare" in Aachen. In the trailer you can see a church, a nun and two students dancing in front of a cross. What is the play about?

Klara Eßer: "Bare" is set at the Catholic boarding school St. Cecilia. Our main protagonists are Peter and Jason. The two boys are friends, roommates and secretly in a relationship. The play is about finding one's identity, sexuality and thus one's role in life. There are many different pupils who live in this boarding school and try to somehow grow up there. A big role is played by the conflict with the reality of life of these young people and the Catholic setting in a quite conservative context.

Question: What does that mean for the gay main characters?

Eßer: It raises the question of how church teachings and their sexuality fit together. Both live in these realities and these realities are existentially connected to them.

Question: What role do faith and the church play in the play?

Eßer: A very big one! We have three explicitly religious roles. On the one hand, there is the priest, who is also the head of this boarding school. The nun Chantelle, who directs the theatre group, and the mother of Peter, one of the main protagonists. The priest and Sister Chantelle both represent different currents in the church. The priest thinks a lot of rules and little of questioning, the sister on the other hand is very open and says: "Jesus loves you and you are good the way you are." And then there are the students, for whom on the one hand faith is very important, but who also have questions.

Question: Religion and homosexuality are a difficult topic for many. How did you approach the implementation of the topic?

Eßer: I personally grew up very Catholic - my family is very devout. My sisters are both studying Catholic theology. Church and faith have always been part of my life. I went to Catholic schools myself - and queer. That's why the subject matter of the play is very close to me. I met a lot of people at school and in parishes who have somehow lived through the whole queer issue. There are good experiences, but also bad experiences.

Question: Do you also have queer and faith actors or actresses?

Eßer: Yes, some in the team have had their experiences with queerness, church and faith. Many are connected by the search for their own role in life, doubting themselves or the question of whether they are welcome in a community. I think everyone can relate to that in some way - whether it's about faith or sexuality. 

Question: What points do you particularly address in the play?

Eßer: I recognise the points of conflict discussed in the play in my own biography. Especially the doubts and this feeling of not quite belonging. For example, we also have nightmare moments in the play. Peter, one of the two main characters, has nightmares that have to do with his homosexuality and the church. I too have had situations in the pew where I heard something and thought to myself, "I don't feel well and actually want to leave now." Especially in church, everyone is somehow welcome and then something is said in the sermon that excludes you as a queer person. But on the other hand, there is also the desire that faith and church should be part of my life. But how can that work if I feel uncomfortable there? I can definitely understand these problems.

Question: Is that the case for everyone in the cast?

Eßer: No, especially people who perhaps didn't grow up believing in a village or have anything to do with the church often can't understand it and say, "Then just leave." But it is not that simple.  A sense of belonging, an inner bond and identity cannot be discarded so easily. You shouldn't underestimate that. By the way, that also applies to your own sexuality - you can't just shake it off. 

Question: Were you able to talk about these disparities during the preparation and find understanding for each other?

Eßer: Yes, we started working shortly after #OutInChurch. That was great, so we could look at how existential the problem of our play is in the documentary. I advised some, "Look at what this might be like for people in the church, even if it's not directly part of your life."

Question: And what were the reactions to that?

Eßer: The documentary had a very positive effect on the playing and the understanding of the basic problem. We double-cast all the roles. One of our priests is queer and can understand the queer issue, but both actors don't know the church issue. So there was a lot of consternation.

"Make the sign of the cross with 30 people at once, some of whom have never made one before..."

- Quote: Klara Eßer, director of "Bare" in Aachen.

Question: Now the play is set in a church context. How is that when you don't really know the context itself?

Eßer: That was a bigger challenge than the queer issue. For example, we have a scene in which a Hail Mary is prayed. One of the actors playing Peter knew it by heart, the other didn't know it at all. With a prayer like that, you shouldn't have to think about the text, because it has to flow devoutly on stage. We rehearsed it extensively and also dealt with the religious background. At the beginning of the play we have a confession of guilt that everyone says together. And: Make the sign of the cross with 30 people at the same time, some of whom have never made one before...

Question: And how did you solve the problems?

Eßer: We dealt intensively with the basics and also looked at where the rites come from, where they occur in the liturgy and what function they have. It is very important to me that we present the Church and the liturgy correctly.

Question: Does that always work?

Eßer: Unfortunately not. For example, because of the lighting and reflection, our parish priest-actor wears a purple instead of a white vestment on Epiphany, and because of the translation of the songs from English, there is a change in the Agnus Dei: we put the German texts that are normally prayed in church on the melody of the English wording - but unfortunately there are syllables missing and we had to change the text. Unfortunately, there was no other way. I'm sure one or two people will notice that.  

Question: How free are you in shaping the play?

Eßer: The basis for the production is of course the script of the musical. So we worked our way through the material and looked at how we wanted to realise the subject matter. That's when I asked myself, "What story do I want to tell?"; "What do I want to highlight?" The play is already a good twenty years old. That means it's not cliché-free either. So the question was whether we show these clichés because it is part of the play, or do we try to break them down?

Question: What would you describe as your signature in the play?

Eßer: It is important to me that the production does not have an enemy image. As in life, it is about different perspectives. That's why we also have a special stage design. We have a very large main stage with an eight-metre-long footbridge and another small stage behind it, which is the room of the two boys. The audience sits around it. That means: depending on where you sit, you see different things and maybe you have to turn around somehow. Maybe not everyone can see every scene. We also have many scenes that happen at the same time. Then I have to decide as a viewer: Do I now look to the left and watch one thing or do I look to the right and watch the other thing? In this way I want to create different perspectives and show that it is not possible to see everything at the same time and to understand everything at the same time.

Question: What relevance does the play have in Germany today?

Eßer: In Germany, but also in the world, there is a lot of exclusion of queer people. Equality is not yet there and there is a lack of acceptance and tolerance. In the past few days in Munich, reading to drag queens was called child abuse. There is a lot of homophobia in everyday life, the suicide rate of queer youth, for example, is three times higher than that of other youth. We need to talk more about this issue in society. As queer people, we just want the same rights. We just want to be equal. For us, it's a struggle every day. That's why we have to be loud in a certain way.

Question: And what relevance does the play have for the church?

Eßer: I think it needs more representation here too. Queer people are part of the church. You can't change that and you can't keep quiet about it. The church must try to understand people. Actually, that shouldn't be the big problem, because the Church teaches that we should listen to each other and love our neighbour.

The association and the play

Floodlight Musicals is a non-profit association from Aachen, Germany, founded in 2016. The group consists of more than 70 members. They are currently performing the pop opera "Bare". The play was first performed in 2000 by Jon Hartmere (lyrics) and Damon Intrabartolo (music) in Los Angeles. The story focuses on two homosexual high school students and their problems at their Catholic boarding school. The play was first staged in Germany in 2018.

Source - the official news service of the Catholic Church in Germany