On the Maryhouse Stage, Power Politics and War

By Kathy Kelly

November 20, 2024

In mid-November, New York’s Catholic Worker community, located in lower Manhattan, opened their sizable auditorium to host “Reap What You Sow: Don’t Lose Heart!” a two act play with two actors which debuted, for two nights, on the Maryhouse stage.

Prior to the performance, preparations included selecting the sturdiest wooden chairs for audience seating, carefully cleaning furniture and floors, and rearranging the space so the next issue of the Catholic Worker newspaper, stacked and ready to mail, wouldn’t interfere with access to the theater. Producers created a set which included curtains made of sheets, an assemblage of donated lights, and a small coffeemaker complete with loud gurgles.

Above were the exposed beams of a building which once functioned as a music school in turn-of-the-century New York City before Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, founders of the Catholic Worker, appropriated it for works of mercy, feeding hungry people and, as much as possible, housing people in the building’s former musical practice rooms.

It was a fitting spot for the play’s debut. Jack Gilroy, the main author, had created earlier versions. Now the play, authored by Gilroy, zool Zulkowitz, and Olivia Gilroy incorporates the dynamics of “living theater” as actors and activists have fed Gilroy their edits. 

The audience were mainly elders who knew one another. Catholic Workers welcomed  Maryknoll Mission sisters, Veterans For Peace, Raging Grannies, and people from Peace Action, World BEYOND War, Code Pink and FOR.

A sprinkling of students from Columbia U. and Fordham, along with a prof from Manhattan College, accompanied by his small son, were also in attendance.

Before the play began, producer zool Zulkowitz played the Beatles’ iconic song, Imagine. Following this came Olivia Rodrigo’s song, Brutal.

Ellie (played by Grazia Saporito) then broke into athletic, riveting dance moves to open the play.

She and her mother, Major Mom, (played by Pat Russell), were winning characters. Tears glistened on Major Mom’s cheeks when she spoke of her experiences as a mother, a widow, and a woman warrior who deeply regretted having killed civilians during missions in which she piloted weaponized drones. The audience learns she was married to Lieutenant Colonel Sean Golden, a marine who died during combat in Iraq. The Major eagerly awaits a promotion to full “Bird Colonel.” 

Showing remarkable patience, Major Mom listens to Ellie divulge childhood disappointments, teenage angst, and her current rage over the roles her parents played in “service” to the U.S. military. At one point, Major Mom says “Whoa,” and accuses Ellie of going too far in her accusations. 

But Ellie, a debate team champ, doesn’t back down. She has evidence to show that her mom’s “arsenal of democracy” rhetoric and revitalization of World War II themes don’t stand up to actual events in the recent past. 

In a way, the play’s two characters are each proxies for fully developed viewpoints. Major Mom represents the Merchants of Death who develop, store, sell and use vast arsenals of weaponry. Ellie champions viewpoints laid out in Howard Zinn’s comprehensive historical outlay, “A People’s History of the United States.” 

With Ellie rebelling against revival of World War II rhetoric, the play becomes quite timely. She insists that the good Germans who supported Nazis have counterparts in the U.S. militarists who “take out” women and children in multiple war zones. The claim, “I was only following orders,” eerily enters the script.

Many of the people in the audience have, in the past, supported activists who were recently imprisoned in U.S. federal lockups for having trespassed at a U.S. base harboring nuclear weapons. One of the activists, Carmen Trotta, came to both performances. Plowshares activists literally beat swords into plowshares, damaging nuclear weapons and pouring their own blood over the decommissioned weapons. They believe in making sacrifices, themselves, on behalf of nonviolence, a theme which recurs in Gilroy’s play.

During a dynamic talk back session, actors, producers, and audience members grappled with questions about conscience and pragmatic steps forward. Ellie, still acting in character, urged people to use their imagination and practice empathy. Art, she said, will be the force that carries us through to a new, safe time. Major Mom, (Pat Russell) pointed to the damage caused by structural and systemic violence. Audience members repeatedly voiced outrage over U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal attacks against Palestinians, noting that democrats dared to warn of fascist encroachment while at the same time enabling and provisioning Israel’s mass killing spree, across the Middle East. Israel’s usage of weaponized drones prolongs and exacerbates a war waged by a racist, far-right, nuclear armed, apartheid regime, one to which the U.S. continues to pledge unwavering support.

It seemed all could agree that, as Adam Tooze, writing for the London Review of Books observes:

“We should be under no illusion: there has been nothing like this level of threat since the dangerous final phase of the Cold War in the early 1980s. With China committed to a rapid buildup of its nuclear arsenal, we are well on the way to an unprecedented 3-way nuclear standoff.”

 The characters in Reap What You Sow recognized pivots in their relationships and their interactions, and they assiduously preserved caring relationships. Powerful elites in our world have comprehensively failed to find means for collaboration, opting instead to demonize enemies for their own political gain, pouring energy and resources into the coffers of people whose “top crop” is weaponry. President Biden refuses to negotiate with Putin, and Ukraine has already fired long range missiles, supplied by the U.S., into Russia, sowing ominous seeks which Putin has stated could yield a nuclear exchange.

I hope the play will awaken numerous people, in audiences across this country and beyond, to the crucial question: how can we learn to live together without killing one another? And the follow-up: how can we abolish war?

Reap What You Sow, Don’t Lose Heart is the first production of the Rising Together Talkback Theater Company. The production is available, for FREE, to churches, schools, peace and justice organizations, and other community groups. The company is booking dates for a Summer 2025 “Reap!” Tour. For more information, contact Zool ([email protected]) or text 718-964-7643.

Kathy Kelly is board president of World BEYOND War. [email protected]

Photo caption: art work by Robert Shetterly, taken from the playbill for “Reap What You Sow”