An excerpt from:
'Improv. Gospel: Exploring Street Performances of Biblical Texts in Urban Con-texts with Augusto Boal' by Marcus Curnow, Research Essay for Masters of Theological Studies, Whitley College, University of Divinity, 2018
Imagine you’re reading the bible as a small group of people from your church. Now I want you to transport that group in your mind into the public space of Melbourne’s Crown Casino. It could be any casino on a busy Friday night in any major city. About a dozen people, standing in a circle.
You get them to be aware of their surrounds and their bodies by asking ‘psycho-geography’ type questions.
What do you sense and feel in a space like this? What attracts or repels you? What are the first words? What are the first questions? What stories spring to mind in a place like this?
You may feel slightly out of place, but not totally out of place. Other people are mingling and talking and there are people and groups, of varying sizes doing their thing.
The consciousness of this particular group has already been shaped by a performance and discussion from the stories from the Mark’s Gospel Chapter 11 & 12 as you have moved through the casino complex, through the vast number of blackjack tables and poker machines stretching as far as the eye can see.
The juxtaposition, resonance and dissonance unfolds almost as a script.
You’ve thought about ‘The Triumphal Entry’ as you’ve entered through the lights and the doors and the security. (Mark 11:1-11)
‘The Cursing of the the Fig Tree’ and the boarding up of a McDonalds on Collins Street which functioned as a symbolic target during anti-globalisation protests in the financial district. (Mark 11:12-14, 20-26)
You’ve read ‘The Turning of the Tables and Temple Blockade’ story as we passed the money exchange as people change their cash for casino chips. From Ancient Jerusalem to contemporary ‘Occupy’ protests, layers of stories, and images from then and now are presented and overlaid.
We listen and reflect as the voiceovers come over the casino PA, “Jackpot! We have a winner!” We think about how temple-like functions such as ‘voice from above’ transcendence, the experience of undeserved grace and salvation can work in a culture where being a loser is to be damned.
We consider the images surrounding us that have been co-opted from traditional or ‘exotic’ cultures. Asian Confucian luck symbols, American Indian dream-catchers or the Imperial Gods of Greek mythology.
We have read the story of ‘The Widow’s Mite’ alongside the five cent per spin poker machines alongside women, who sit and play alone and in silence. We ponder the statistics of gambling addiction and the reality of those who put into this temples coffers ‘their whole means of subsistence, all they have to live on.’ (Mark 12:41-44 )
Moving through the casino, the group encounters two large relief sculptures of Roman coins that frame an entrance to a more exclusive internal room for high rolling members. One coin is Caesars head and the other has Caesar riding a horse; direct replicas of the ancient denarius. The sculpture is two meters high and its base is attached to the wall starting at a meter off the floor. And so the group moves to the reading of the story of ‘Taxes Rendered to Caesar’ (Mark 12:13-17).
Denarius 8-7 BC Roman Empire AUGUSTUS AR Denarius. EF-. Lugdunum mint. Caesar riding horse and Standards. EF- https://www.ma-shops.com/aeternitas/item.php?id=2999&lang=en
A rendering of Marcus Curnow’s ‘Gospel of Vic’ contextual re-write/translation of Mark’s Gospel story set in 1999 Melbourne is read/performed.
12 And they were trying to arrest him, but they were afraid of the swinging voters, for they knew that the spin on reality had been spun against them. And they left him and went away. And they are sending to him some of the Eco-rats and Jeff’s mates in order that they might trap him in something he said. 14 And coming they say to him, Teacher we know that you are true, and are concerned for no one, for you have no regard for the position of people, but truthfully teach the way of God. Is it ethical to give in-to the global financial system or not? To give or not to give? 15 But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, Why do you try me out? Give me a credit card so that I might look at it. 16 And they gave him one. And he says to them, Whose logo is this? And the inscription? And they said to him, It is VISA’s. 17 And Jesus said to them,“Give to VISA the things that are VISAs and to God the things that are Gods.” And they were astounded at him.
The group responds with reflection and questions, some rhetorical, some provoking actual discussion. What does it mean to give to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s? In what ways participation in the global economy, VISA or casino club customer loyalty scheme today akin or unlike loyalty to Caesar back then? Is it considered taboo or okay to go to the casino in your particular Christian culture and why? How difficult is it to choose not to participate in such as place as gambling plays such an entrenched role in our cities cultural life? What does it mean to give to two systems at the same time that seem to contradict each other?
All of a sudden you become aware that someone has left the group , and is in fact, scaling the sculpture.
In a spontaneous act of performance of ‘Rendering unto Caesar’ they have pulled twenty dollars from their wallet and the chewing gum from their mouth and are grasping and grappling precariously upon the wall. As the participant gets higher he struggles to climb the relief sculpture and so he manages to reach up, and like a childhood game of pin the tail on the donkey, stick the twenty dollar note on the horses’ arse.
In a spontaneous act of performance of ‘Rendering unto Caesar’ they have pulled twenty dollars from their wallet and the chewing gum from their mouth and are grasping and grappling precariously upon the wall…
Security emerge and drag the person down from the wall and suddenly surround the group.
A discussion ensues as to whether he is associated with the group or not and whether the whole group should be escorted from the building. We begin a discussion with the security personnel arguing that this is just a bible study, that nothing illegal has taken place, and that the casino is twenty dollars up. The security guard, unused to this situation says “This is a casino, you can’t do bible study here! We’ don’t do religion here!” A discussion takes place about how religious the space really is given the employment of imagery from numerous cultural traditions on the poker machines within sight.
The expulsion of the group is interrupted. Unbeknownst to security, some of the members of the bible study group have been targeted by the casino’s hospitality team as potential members. Things slow down as the casino security debate with their own hospitality team as to whether they are kicking the group out or signing them up!
Through one physical spontaneous act of boundary transgression, the group is transformed from a conventional church bible study group, reading and theorising abstractly about what rendering to Caesar may mean from the safety of their church or private home, to being actual characters in a drama, whose bodies and activities have, like Jesus and his disciples, deemed to have threatened the ‘sacred’ space of the dominant culture…
The People's Table... 