Shock Value

It’s not the sort of play you would expect at a church-affiliated school like Cal Lutheran University. Ads for it warn: “Contains graphic depictions of sexuality and violence and is recommended for mature audiences only.”

When “Vinegar Tom” opens today on the small, quiet Thousand Oaks campus, viewers may be shocked. After all, the props for the set include a dildo, G-string, bull whip and handcuffs. During the production, images--some of them nude--will flash on television screens.

The play so offended some students in the drama department that they wouldn’t audition for the production, calling it crass, vulgar and inappropriate for a Christian college.

“I couldn’t compromise my morals,” said Ramie Becker, 18, and a CLU freshman from Visalia. “It’s hostile toward religion. I don’t want my parents to come and be shocked and embarrassed by what’s on stage.”

All that hasn’t dissuaded CLU’s drama department head Michael Arndt, who helped select the play, which depicts the witch hunts of 17th century England, set to contemporary music.

“When theater works best it’s controversial and somewhat daring,” Arndt said. “It causes people to think, and in some cases that makes them feel uncomfortable and shocked.” Arndt expects that some outraged audience members will call him. “I’ll welcome that,” he said. In fact, at some of the seven performances, the audience will be invited to join the cast and faculty in a discussion about the play, which runs this weekend and next.

“Vinegar Tom,” written in 1976 by British playwright Caryl Churchill, is set in rural England in 1645. It focuses on a handful of impoverished women who have the misfortune of being a bit different from most women of that day. For that, they are targeted as witches.

Alice, the main character, espouses independent views of sex and marriage and yearns for more pizazz in her drab life. Joan, her outspoken mother, is a sometime lush. Young Betty is thought to be ill when she refuses to go along with an arranged marriage. Another is pregnant with an unwanted child. And another is a compassionate healer, a profession reserved only for men.

When a self-righteous neighbor reports that her cows are dying and her husband won’t have sex with her, she blames it on witches, and so begins the roundup of suspects--or misfits.

“You had to be a witch if you had a mind of your own,” said the play’s director, Kristin Kundert-Gibbs, on leave from her post as director of the acting program at Indiana State University.

The play shouts a feminist message against the power and control that men and the church had over women of the time. Although it’s more than 300 years later, women’s struggle for identity isn’t over.

“It’s present today, the double standard, only it’s more subtle,” Kundert-Gibbs said. “It’s OK for a boy to play around, but a girl (who does) is a slut.”

To make the play’s message more contemporary, a four-member band performs folk-rock music between scenes. The Port Hueneme band, Atticus, uses the harsh, raw and sometimes obscene lyrics written by the playwright, but the group wrote new music for the production.

In one scene, the suspected witches are repeatedly and painfully pricked to find a spot that doesn’t bleed--proof they are the real McCoy. In another, the unwilling bride-to-be is tied down and bled by a doctor. Although there is no nudity by the actors, one scene is sexually suggestive and physically violent. In another, there is a quick, humorous, almost inadvertent same-sex kiss.

“It’s not like a homosexual kiss,” Kundert-Gibbs said. Nonetheless, she said she discussed the scene with the two actors to make sure they weren’t doing anything that would make them uncomfortable. “They were cool with it,” she said.

Christa Knudsen, the 19-year-old daughter of a Lutheran pastor, plays Alice, the lead. When she first read the script, she was offended by the brash language but decided the play’s message was too important.

“It’s empowering women, freeing them up to be who they want to be,” said Knudsen, who confided she has never been much of a feminist. Prejudice against women is still a problem, she pointed out, and some women are still in abusive relationships.

“I hope people won’t disregard the entire play because it’s harsh,” she said.

Knudsen’s parents, who live in Costa Mesa, will be in the audience when the curtain goes up. “That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said.

For others like Becker and Jane Plank, 18, from the Minneapolis area, the play presented a dilemma. They came to this small campus eager for acting roles in serious productions.

“I’m a Christian and faith is important to me,” said Plank. “I’m not a prude.” She brought her objections to Arndt and others, wanting to know why a Christian school like CLU would pick a play like “Vinegar Tom.” She didn’t buy his explanation that several other colleges have put on the play and that it has created an arena for provocative discussion about moral issues, which is at the heart of Lutheran education.

“You don’t write racist things on a wall,” she said, “to create talk.”

Will she and Becker go see the play? “Definitely,” Becker said. “We want to support our friends. It’s not like we’re boycotting them or the department.”

BE THERE

“Vinegar Tom” will be performed in Preus-Brandt Forum at Cal Lutheran University, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. Show times are Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; Nov. 20-22, 8 p.m.; and Nov. 23, 2 p.m. Tickets $8, free with CLU identification. For information, call 493-3415.

FO DRAMATIC MESSAGE: Christa Knudsen plays lead role of Alice opposite Nick McCullum in “Vinegar Tom.”