Controversy Revisited

In 1956, when Warner LeRoy’s “Between Two Thieves” opened off-Broadway in New York, it caused quite a stir.

The play received excellent reviews, especially from the New York Times, but that didn’t keep some people from walking out.

Group Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Lonny Chapman says his staging might cause the same reactions, because the play’s issues are still volatile.

The son in a Jewish family has been killed by a mob of anti-Semites, and his parents begin an odyssey throughout the country, traveling with a troupe of actors.

A play within a play is created--part history, part courtroom drama, part improvisation with audience members.

It explores religious issues, including the death of Jesus and what its implications are today for both Christians and Jews.

Chapman feels particularly close to the play’s subject of intolerance. He was raised, he says, in a straight-laced, very religious environment in southwestern Missouri.

“Everything was segregated then,” Chapman said. “I played sports all the time but never played with African Americans, because they weren’t allowed.”

When he was old enough, Chapman joined the Marines, and later found himself in New York with a burning desire to be an actor.

The lifestyles he encountered all of a sudden seemed to him almost like a “conversion.” Then, in the mid-1950s, he saw “Between Two Thieves.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this play,” he said, “because I feel it delves into the transformation I went through, about understanding, about acceptance and belief in all people. I imagine we’ll always have some kind of prejudice, but the play deals with the fact that we have to be able to understand each other in order to survive.”

Arabella Chavers Julien, who plays Mary, the mother of Jesus, perhaps feels the import of the play’s message even more.

“I find it fascinating,” she said, “that it is a religious piece, and today there are still so many religious wars happening. Religious wars. That’s an oxymoron. The two words don’t belong together. If you’re religious, you’re supposed to love one another, and be at one with God. And not kill one another.

“That’s part of the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ There are no amendments to it. There have been so many religious wars that have been holy wars, about ‘I am right, and you are wrong.’ Look at Ireland today. And the Middle East.”

Chavers Julien compares religious intolerance to racism. In the play, she said, Pontius Pilate makes the same comparison.

“It’s like the poor whites in the South who look down on blacks,” she said. “Whatever strata they’re on, they say, ‘We’re better than [they are].’ That’s addressed in the play.”

The play’s use of various theatrical styles--a play within a play, a courtroom drama, improvisation--to explain and explore the historical and personal issues involved, is imaginative and illuminative.

And even if some audience members are angered by the subject, Chapman says the playwright has been careful to bring logic and empathy to his presentation of each side of the subject. He admits it is a very strong subject.

But Chavers Julien believes that it is a subject that has to be addressed.

“Religion is discussed in the play,” she said, “but it boils down to the fact that we all have to get along.

“We’re all from the same spirit, and we’re all a little bit different. And that’s all right too. We should delve into what makes us interesting, rather than fighting about what makes us different.”

* “Between Two Thieves,” Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Indefinite. $15. (818) 769-7529.