By Susannah Whitman
This isn’t the first time that An Other Theater Company has explored themes of faith and queer identity, and their recent staged reading of local actor/playwright Chelsea Hickman’s new script Safe is an honest and beautiful exploration of what it means to be gay and Mormon in today’s world.
The story focuses on Sam and Aubrey, two LDS women at BYU, with different levels of faith, and the connection they forge with one another (and what that connection means). The play is told in short scenes, out of sequence, and covers Sam’s and Aubrey’s lives over a period of several years. Their lives continue to intersect, even after they part ways as BYU freshmen, through missions, marriage, unplanned pregnancies, miscarriages, crises of faith, assault, and ongoing questions.
Hickman plays Aubrey, and there is a deep and powerful honesty to her portrayal. Her sweetness as a young freshman, her doubts and desires, her anger and hurt—all are deeply universal. But her performance may especially resonate with members of the LDS Church who have struggled with doubts or questions, or who have felt there is no place for them.
The “edgy” California girl Sam is played by Laura Chapman, who balances humor and vulnerability perfectly. Chapman finds the balance between Sam’s straightforward snark and her honest and deep pain. Bryce Fueston rounds out the cast as both Jensen, Aubrey’s boyfriend, and Ethan, Sam’s husband. The two characters are distinct from one another, and both are played with honesty and skill.
As a staged reading, costumes, set, and other tech are minimal, and the actors carry scripts in their hands. But there are whole sections of the play that feel fully realized—when the actors are looking into one another’s eyes, and when the story needs no further dressing.
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One challenge within the script that could be addressed in later drafts is having a little bit more of the story’s action take place on the stage, rather than the audience hearing about it from the characters’ dialogue afterwards. Hickman does an excellent job of communicating plot points with short scenes, implying events without showing us every detail. But several key scenes might be worth showing the audience—the scene between Aubrey and Jensen at the swing set, for example, or Aubrey and Sam jumping off rocks with a group of boys they meet. While placing these scenes onstage does present a few challenges in production, there are always creative ways to make them happen, and it would make some of the action more immediate.
But even with this small weakness, the thing that’s most powerful about the play is how fiercely honest and relevant it is. There is a great deal of humor in the play, and it is deeply enjoyable. But its themes of faith and doubt, desire and pain—those are what seem to resonate most deeply with the audience members sitting in the familiar yellow pews. In the Q&A session after the reading, one audience member shared that the play basically told the story of their own life, and the actors all shared similar experiences of audience members sharing how the play reflected their experiences. While the staged reading had only two performances, it’s evidence of the kind of moving and relevant work that An Other Theater Company continues to produce.
It is not easy to be queer and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nor is it easy to be a woman and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sometimes the places where those identities intersect are painful. Hickman’s script, and An Other Theater Company’s staged reading of it, explores those uncomfortable places—the places where you may feel split in half, or like you don’t quite belong. But ultimately, the story is one of hope. One about being able to feel, despite it all, safe.
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