Leap of Faith was the first Broadway production I ever went to. When the singers took the stage, and I saw the bible-belt garb and the gospel music, I smiled, because I was Christian too. And this would be peaceful to me. I held that thought until I realized that the whole gospel choir and pastor were a group of con-artists set out to exploit this drought-stricken town named Sweetwater and tithe them to death.
The actor Raul Esperza played Jonas Nightingale, the con-pastor, and he welcomed New York, and called us a lot of atheists and Jews. And the whole crowd cheered, well, except me. Later, a little boy on a wheelchair, who would finally test Esparza’s faith, came up to the audience. And he asked us who truly believed in a God. And people laughed. I was scared to raise my hand. And I felt like I should have taken that leap of faith.
But I took this whole poking-fun at Christianity too austerely. I was used to Christianity being super serious, and that this fun was not to be permitted. It was defamation to the name of God. But as the story played out, my heart grew warm for all the characters, even the con-pastor who was stealing people’s money. He was a fatherless man who with his sister drove from town to town with a ragamuffin lot who knew no father except Jonas. And I saw that they had their own struggles too.
In the midst of swindling Sweetwater, Jonas meets a small-town girl named Marla, the county sheriff. They take a romantic liking to each other, but it’s when Jonas meets her son that the main problem in the play develops. The gang had been “prophesying” based on field-notes and “healing” by normal people who could walk onto wheelchairs. And here was a boy who really couldn’t walk. And he believed hard in God and Jonas that he would be healed during the “revivals.” And then I realized that sometimes God even goes through the defamation of his own name to change the ones he loves. Jonas Nightingale had always swaggered into whatever he wanted, but here were two things he could not get: the love of Marla and the healing of her son. He had to take a Leap of Faith that’d eventually lead him to God. And I had to take a Leap of Faith to believe that such a swashbuckler could turn his life around.
For care for the audience, I’ll refrain from saying any more spoilers. As I left the theater, I was flabbergasted at the ability for an artwork to instill such contradictory feelings in me: anger and appreciation. The musical scores, the storyline, the live band and orchestra all worked together meticulously and right on cue to give such a wondrous feeling: excitement, sadness, joy, faith, and perhaps even the Love of God. Art transcends such things. The atheist Freud was afraid to encounter art because it brought in him experiences too real and too divine for him to handle. If he had seen Leap of Faith, perhaps he would have walked out of the theater. It was brilliant: transformative even.
