MISSA SOLEMNIS
or The Play About Henry
or The Play About Henry
____________________
H
enry never desired to be in a
relationship with another man.
- Marilyn Matis
relationship with another man.
- Marilyn Matis
COMMENTARY ON MISSA SOLEMNIS
Roman ~
I read “Missa Solemnis” last night and found it extremely moving. I really think that
you have accomplished what you set out to do: tell a tragic story with compassion …
and I think plant some seeds in the minds of the audience.
Obviously I’m a gay Mormon myself and, while I have not read the Matis’s book, I’ve
read a lot and spoken with friends in the church extensively about this (and the
many other) Mormon suicides. It’s an unacknowledged situation in the church that
will only find resolution when there is enough public outcry to make it a public
relations issue in Salt Lake. Your work, both the play and your forthcoming book I’m
sure, are important bricks in that wall.
I was very impressed with the fact that you got the Mormonism spot on! That is
something that is very difficult for people who are not immersed in the culture.
There were a couple of times when I thought to myself, “Real people wouldn’t act
that way – BUT Mormons would.” For example, the complete inability of Stuart’s
family to address his homosexuality, despondency, and increasing suicidal outcry
because of their Mormonism is tragic and dead right. If anyone in the post-play
productions has trouble accepting their reactions, you can add my testimony that you
nailed the way traditional Mormons are frozen like deer in headlights when faced
with anything that strays beyond the bounds of the narrow parameters of what is
taught to be acceptable behavior. Just last week there was a “National Leadership
Meeting on the Family” broadcast to all Mormon stake centers. It contained two
hours of having the Proclamation on the Family drummed into the members heads as
the Only acceptable model for a “happy successful family.” It was lapped up by
everyone, including those in my own Rochester stake where Fewer Than 50% of the
“families” in the church fit that prescribed mold. There is a disconnect from reality
that is propagated and accepted without question that leads to the Matis family’s
total inability to even try to help Stuart.
Congratulations on a job well done. Break a leg with your production next week.
Gerald S. Argetsinger, Ph.D.
Dpt of Cultural and Creative Studies, LBJ-1849
NTID at RIT
52 Lomb Memorial Dr
Rochester NY 14623
I read “Missa Solemnis” last night and found it extremely moving. I really think that
you have accomplished what you set out to do: tell a tragic story with compassion …
and I think plant some seeds in the minds of the audience.
Obviously I’m a gay Mormon myself and, while I have not read the Matis’s book, I’ve
read a lot and spoken with friends in the church extensively about this (and the
many other) Mormon suicides. It’s an unacknowledged situation in the church that
will only find resolution when there is enough public outcry to make it a public
relations issue in Salt Lake. Your work, both the play and your forthcoming book I’m
sure, are important bricks in that wall.
I was very impressed with the fact that you got the Mormonism spot on! That is
something that is very difficult for people who are not immersed in the culture.
There were a couple of times when I thought to myself, “Real people wouldn’t act
that way – BUT Mormons would.” For example, the complete inability of Stuart’s
family to address his homosexuality, despondency, and increasing suicidal outcry
because of their Mormonism is tragic and dead right. If anyone in the post-play
productions has trouble accepting their reactions, you can add my testimony that you
nailed the way traditional Mormons are frozen like deer in headlights when faced
with anything that strays beyond the bounds of the narrow parameters of what is
taught to be acceptable behavior. Just last week there was a “National Leadership
Meeting on the Family” broadcast to all Mormon stake centers. It contained two
hours of having the Proclamation on the Family drummed into the members heads as
the Only acceptable model for a “happy successful family.” It was lapped up by
everyone, including those in my own Rochester stake where Fewer Than 50% of the
“families” in the church fit that prescribed mold. There is a disconnect from reality
that is propagated and accepted without question that leads to the Matis family’s
total inability to even try to help Stuart.
Congratulations on a job well done. Break a leg with your production next week.
Gerald S. Argetsinger, Ph.D.
Dpt of Cultural and Creative Studies, LBJ-1849
NTID at RIT
52 Lomb Memorial Dr
Rochester NY 14623
PRESS
Below is my review of Missa Solemnis or The Play About Henry, which I wrote for The
BANNER, the student newspaper at the College of Staten Island and which I also
submitted to Ohana News.
Missa Solemnis or The Play About Henry
by Roman Feeser
Directed by Linda S. Nelson
at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre
reviewed by John Adrian
Missa Solemnis or The Play About Henry by Roman Feeser opened Wednesday,
February 27th, and ran for four performances through Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at
the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in New York City.
The carefully researched and crafted play looks at the life and death of Henry Stuart
Matis, (Matt Huffman) the gay, Morman man who shot himself to death on the steps
of the California Mormon Stake Center where he and his family attended church in
the early morning hours of February 25, 2000.
Throughout the play Henry struggles against his homosexuality, or same-sex
attraction in Mormonspeak, After his death, the people who dressed Henry’s body
for burial reportedly commented on the callouses on his knees produced by the
hours on end, often through-out the night that he spent kneeling in prayer, asking
God to remove the burden of homosexuality from him or to give him guidance in
how to live with this, in Henry’s mind, terrible burden.
God answers Henry’s prayers for guidance in the person of Todd Elliot (Jai Catalano)
who meets Henry, who is in New York on a business trip, in a Manhattan gay bar
where Henry orders a glass of milk. Todd and Henry talk and Todd quickly falls for
Henry, with his milk moustache and palpable innocence. Henry also falls for Todd. So
much so that he soon fakes, to his parents, another business trip to New York in
order to spend a weekend with Todd. During that trip Todd and Henry spend several
nights together and get to know each other. Clearly they are falling in love with each
other.
Henry returns to California and talks with his bishop who refers him to the bishop
(Warren Katz) of a singles ward (congregation) in the area who has much more
experience in counseling GLBT people whogives Henry good, compassionate
counsel, which largely runs counter to the official teachings of The LDS Church. (The
LDS Church does not have full-time, trained clergy. All adult male members are
ordained to the LDS Priesthood. Individuals may then be "called" to various jobs or
positions in The Church without any formal training or special education.)
Shortly after the interview with the bishop, Henry is in church on a Sunday when a
letter from the First Presidency and The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the two
highest governing bodies in the LDS Church) is read from the pulpit instructing all
Mormons in California to donate time, talents and money to the campaign to pass
Proposition 22, the so-called "Knight Initiative" which will define marriage under
California law as only between one man and one woman, covertly. (The ordered
donations of time, talents and money must be made covertly lest the LDS Church be
accused of lobbying for partisan political causes and, thereby, jeopardize its tax
exempt status.) Henry is so affected by the hateful rhetoric that he abruptly leaves
the church service.
This leads to a conversation with his parents in which he admits his "same-sex
attraction". His mother (Susan Pierson) spouts the platitudes she has learned over a
lifetime as a Latter-day Saint, but is no help to her son. As I watched Carolyn Matis I
thought, "this woman has no touch with the real world."
Gerald S. Argetsinger, Ph.D., Professor of Cultural and Creative Studies, at the
National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology and
himself a gay Latter-day Saint, wrote after reading Missa Solemnis, "Real people do
NOT behave that way – BUT Mormons do!" Henry’s father, Frank (Sean Eger), is little
better advising Henry to "pray for guidance" as though Henry hadn’t calloused on
his knees through untold hours in prayer.
A few days later Henry takes his own life unable to reconcile the Heavenly guidance
to accept himself as he is that he has received, through Todd and the singles ward
bishop, in answer to his prayers with the hateful, homophobic teachings of the
church he loves and whose leaders he reveres a "prophets, seers, and revelators."
By the time you read this review, Missa Solemnis or The Play About Henry will have
closed in this limited, workshop production under the very capable, talented
direction of Linda S. Nelson. I am told that there are plans to take it to other cities for
similar, limited, workshop productions which hopefully will culminate in an off-
Broadway run in New York. If and when you and it are in the same city at the same
time, I strongly recommend it.
MEDIA