Manoel Felciano: Defining Divinity Onstage and Off
Actor, singer, musician and—to judge from this essay—spiritual explorer—Manoel Felciano is currently co-starring in Atlantic Theatre Company's production of Trumpery, a new play by Peter Parnell that examines the roots of Darwin's theories. Felciano is cast as Alfred Russel Wallace, a British evolutionary thinker who arrived at the same conclusions as Darwin but disagreed on the possible spiritual underpinnings of Natural Selection. It's a juicy follow-up to Felciano's Tony-nominated breakthrough performance as Tobias in John Doyle's production of Sweeney Todd. And to cap off a busy fall, the performer known to all as Mano is celebrating the upcoming release of his solo CD, Moonshot. Felciano, a Yale graduate who ditched a budding Wall Street career to pursue his passion for performing including earning an MFA from NYU's graduate acting program, has obviously pondered the big questions posed by Trumpery—and he generously shared his thoughts with Broadway.com readers.
In Peter Parnell's wonderful new play Trumpery, Charles Darwin played by Michael Cristofer speaks of his discovery of the theory of Natural Selection and his publication of The Origin of Species as having "killed God." The character I play, Alfred Russel Wallace, who discovered the very same mechanism, simultaneously and independently, instead finds himself led to embrace the spiritual. In dramatizing these diverging paths, Trumpery examines Faith, Science and the collisions between them in ways that resonate deeply with my own experiences and with many of our current debates.
One of the reasons I produced a semi-staged concert version of the musical The Hidden Sky by Peter Foley & Kate Chisholm at Joe's Pub this past spring is that it dares to posit that scientific inquiry and spiritual exploration do not necessarily lead in opposite directions—in fact, if followed far enough, they lead to the same place. When I mentioned this idea at Joe's in my introduction, there were spontaneous bursts of applause from all over the room.
It's perhaps no coincidence that Wallace has enjoyed a rehabilitation of sorts recently, largely because some of his ideas—for which he was derided by Darwin and his fellow scientists during his lifetime—are being re-examined and given new currency. Wallace refused to be co-opted by either organized religion or the scientific establishment, and was ridiculed for his insistence that humanity be held above the other species. He believed that the development of consciousness, intellect and morality could not be explained by natural selection alone and that therefore a "Higher Intelligence had guided the same laws for nobler ends." This, from the man who discovered the Darwin-Wallace Theory of Natural Selection, was indeed, as he called it, a "little heresy."
The tricky part for those, like Wallace, who fall somewhere between atheism and absolute belief often seems to be the word God itself. It causes a knee-jerk reaction in many, who shudder at being even remotely associated with anything that might link them to the decidedly human failings of organized religion. Indeed, Wallace himself avoided the word, which marks him as a particular kind of intelligent design advocate: one who has no use for biblical literalism, but whose own aesthetic experience of the world was so great that Natural Selection, and the randomness of mutation and the base survival instinct upon which it depends, was as I say in the play "simply not enough."
Something about Wallace's predicament hit home with me. I know from my own life that aesthetic experiences can be profoundly irrational and transcendent. In turn, it seems counterintuitive for me to deny, at the very least, the possible existence of some sort of mysterious otherness. I can't go hear the Broadway Inspirational Voices or Mozart's 40th or the Act I finale of Sunday in the Park With George, or read the "holy palmers" scene in Romeo and Juliet and not be dumbstruck by a sense of bursting, continually expanding awe, that must by its very nature and herein is its Achilles heel go beyond explanation.
I think there are a lot of people out there, especially artists, who feel the same way I do, but who shy away from giving that experience the name God because of its attendant baggage. I understand that hesitation. My relationship with that loaded word, let alone the concept it is trying to encapsulate, is a constantly evolving no pun intended negotiation that has its share of second guessing and flip-flopping. But I keep grappling with it, more with glee and excitement than frustration.
These are private experiences. But I have been disturbed, particularly in light of recent history and headlines, by what I see as the wholesale hijacking of the word God let alone Christian or Muslim by extremist, intolerant zealots who would bully all dissenting ideas of God into submission. So I refuse to concede ownership of the word, and try to reclaim it to the extent that I can. While I do not share all of Wallace's views, I admire how his spiritual sensitivity emerged from the fullness with which he led his life. But I would argue for a way of apprehending God beyond theism. To anthropomorphize God is to diminish the scale inherent in the idea, as some sort of cosmic arbitrator who punishes, rewards, gets angry, is jealous, is pleased, lives in the sky, performs miracles, controls the weather and sports events, speaks English, gives career advice, plops fully formed species down on the earth: God as some sort of unpredictable über-human.
Aldous Huxley wrote: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." The "inexpressible" that he refers to is something I might call God. Aldous Huxley's grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog," played by Neal Huff in our play, made a career of demolishing creationists and coined the term "agnostic." If I attempted a definition of that "inexpressible," it would end up something hopelessly reaching and legalistic, like: "A transcendent experience of otherness which cannot be empirically verified resulting from—and in—a profound emotional and aesthetic reaction which prompts a sense of awe as distinct from fear, and expansive, life-affirming compassion."
One can probably infer from all this that, like Wallace, I am not a prime candidate for any organized religion. But I am interested in and respect the theatricality inherent in the rituals of many faiths. The powerful drama of the ceremonies I witnessed as a child—with their pageantry, music and "smells and bells"—made a lasting impression on me. It is no surprise to me that, years later, I ended up as an actor. Bianca Amato who plays Darwin's wife, Emma, and whose own faith is a linchpin in Trumpery said to me that "the theater is my church," and many actors would agree. It's not hard for me to find a spiritual aspect to what we do. At its heart, acting should be an ongoing act of empathy: for yourself, your character, for one's fellow actors, the audience, and ultimately for humanity as a whole. Empathy is the greatest gift we have, and it is how I think we are most fully realized as humans.
The other night as I was warming up, preparing to debate all these ideas on stage, I happened to look up at the arching tree branches of Santo Loquasto's beautiful set, and it occurred to me that I was in a church of nature, nested inside a church of theater, inside an actual old gothic church. I felt very lucky to be there. After all, under the best of circumstances, the act of communion between audience and actor can be an act of unanticipated emotional and psychological faith healing. When the lights go down and the curtain goes up, everyone makes a leap of faith.