No Más: An Evening With Maura, Ita, Dorothy, and Jean
By Becky Chabot, St. Joseph Worker
By now, I think my roommates are starting to get used to the fact that I rope them into crazy things. And I’m pretty sure that when I asked if they’d be willing to do, well, a play with me that I was kidding and it wouldn’t actually happen. And once I had roped them into it (okay, it really didn’t take that much), all I had left to do was find a guy who would be willing to not only perform on stage, but endure a couple of hours a week for a little over a month at our house with the five of us. For those of you reading this that have the privilege to know us well, you know what the five of us are like when we’re together. For those of you who have met us only in passing, well, I’m sure you can imagine how incredible a person would have to be in order to work with us with any regularity (thus why we all have such incredible supervisors!).
As luck (or maybe God) would have it, the first teacher I really started to get to know at Cretin-Derham Hall happened to be an English teacher named Kevin Lally who has quite the background in theater. And, even more luckily, he agreed to be a part of this production. I was prepared to beg, but he was actually quite amenable to the idea (which I am incredibly grateful for). With the cast assembled, it was time to start rehearsing and prepare for the presentation. The first order of business was to do a little nonviolence training. Though these women met a violent end, their lives were ones of nonviolence and I firmly believe that exploring the ideas of nonviolence are vital to being a witness to their lives.
Johanna and I had both been through nonviolence training in the past and so she agreed to help me out with it. The only catch was that I had tickets to a concert that night and so we may have had the fastest nonviolence training ever. But it was a good experience for us to really know where the others are coming from and to really get a feel for each others’ lived realities. Even amongst us five St. Joseph Workers, there were surprises. The first exercise is designed to demonstrate the various ways that violence has touched the lives of those present and I know that I learned a lot more about how violence had touched the lives of my roommates (and Kevin) than I had thought I would. Each time I go through nonviolence training, I see more of the pervasiveness of violence.
After we had been “trained”, we began to rehearse. We met on Thursday nights and shared a meal as a group before delving into the material. In addition to simply running lines, we also educated ourselves more about what had happened in El Salvador and what is currently going on. We watched Roses in December and learned more about the life of Jean Donovan (and a little bit more about the other women, too). And we watched part of Jesuit Journeys, a film by a Creighton University Jesuit named Don Doll about Jesuits in three parts of the world (El Salvador, India, and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota). I was able to share some of my Salvadoran experience by pointing out landmarks and people I knew in the Jesuit Journeys video because a good chunk of it took place in the town I had lived in for a week.
Our final rehearsal was Monday of the week of the show. Shortly before we started to actually rehearse, I received an email from a friend in El Salvador informing me that Fr. Cortina, one of the two Jesuits who had not been killed in November of 1989, had suffered a massive stroke over the weekend and was not expected to regain consciousness. Fr. Cortina, the subject of Jesuit Journeys, has been extremely important in my own life. Not only did I get to know him before and during out time in El Salvador, but I also had the privilege to spent almost two hours talking to him later that same summer. He is an engineering professor at the Jesuit university in San Salvador and the parish priest in Guarjila, the town we lived in. He has been a huge support for John Giuliano and the Tamarindos, the youth group that the funds from the show benefited. He founded Probusqueda, an organization dedicated to helping families find their lost children. In short, he is probably the most amazing man I have met in my entire life.
To say that I was shocked was an understatement. This is a man whose life had been threatened time and time again and had survived several assassination attempts on his life. For his body to turn against him was almost inconceivable. I was pretty devastated. The show is very difficult for me to actually perform in. When the show premiered, I was not a part of the cast. I was able to stay behind the scenes and only serve as director. Last spring, when the second performance happened, I stepped into a couple of small roles to fill in for a couple of people who couldn’t make it that night. But this was the first time I had to step into a role I both love and dread.
I have a lot in common with Jean Donovan. We’re both from small towns in Connecticut. We both come from rather conservative families. And we both fell in love with El Salvador. The first time I watched Roses in December, it was about three weeks after getting back from El Salvador. When they read parts of her journal from her first visit there, I found myself wondering how they had gotten a copy of my journal. And the similarities don’t end there. When I spent some time in Omaha with Fr. Cortina later that summer, one of the first things he said to me was, “You know, you kind of look like Jean Donovan.” So it was very difficult for me to step into her shoes. I have pretty terrible stage fright to begin with, but this role meant more to me than anything could or has. So I was more than doubly nervous. I wanted to get it right. I wanted to honor her memory.
But when Friday rolled around, I was strangely calm. Okay, there might have been one or two minor freak outs (but that’s pretty typical of an average week for me), but I didn’t find myself fighting the urge to go off and cry somewhere. After we had all arrived at Carondelet Center, we did a quick run through to get used to the stage and then we had about twenty minutes free before the show actually started. I spent it pacing. Five minutes before we got started, the six of us huddled up in the storage room. I explained the pre-show traditions and then we prayed. It has become tradition to start the show with the same prayer that the Tamarindos begin all of their activities with. They call it their Plan de Trabajo or their Work Plan. It is the prayer of St. Francis (in Spanish, of course).
After we prayed, we entered the performance space. Okay, so there were maybe quite a few more people than I was expecting. The turnout was overwhelming and I was proud to be apart of the ministries of the Sisters. After Joänne introduced the show, we performed. It was a powerful thing to look out and see people like Rita Steinhagen nodding along. After we finished, we took a break while people reflected before doing the question and answer period (and plugging the St. Joseph Worker program a little bit).
The highlight for me, though, came at the end of the night. The Tamarindos depend on donations to pay for everything from rent (for their meeting space and the place the college students live) to school uniforms and books to college tuition for those students who get accepted to a university. I was genuinely overwhelmed by the response of those present. We raised enough money to pay rent for an entire year for the college students in San Salvador, which is a huge burden off John’s back. It was a powerful night to be a part of. On behalf of the cast, I would like to thank Women Religious for Justice for putting this memorial together. And we would like to thank all those that came out that night for their generous support. You are truly making a difference in the lives of Salvadoran youth!
