Damien - One Man Play - Hawaii 2009: Damien

Damien - One Man Play in Hawaii

"Casey Groves' performance of Damien is very powerful, and I encourage parishes and schools throughout the islands to host a performance as a way of celebrating Blessed Damien's coming canonization." - Most Reverend Larry Silva; Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church of Hawaii

The "One Man Play" Damien was presented 21 times in 19 days, in 11 parishes, 8 schools, a Retreat Center, a private viewing at Malia O Ka Malu Community, and for the Kalaupapa community. Benefactors took care of necessary expenses for the school performances and generous free will offerings aided Casey as he engaged with our Hawaii students. Many Hawaii residents relived Fr. Damien's story through Casey Groves.

For more information about Casey Groves and his performances, visit https://caseygroves.backpackit.com/pub/705567. Preview a 6-minute video is at http://www.caseygroves.com/damien.htm.
Scheduling of performances was coordinated by Leoda Shizuma at shizuma@wave.hicv.net or 808-553-5583.

May 10th- Damien's Feast Day Ceremony at the State Capitol Building

It was great to see so many people of the Sacred Hearts community that I had connected with on the first leg of this tour. There was Fr. Chris Keahi, Sr. Helene Wood, Fr. Lane Akiona, Fr. Steven, Sr. Mary Dolorine, Sr. Dolores, Sr. Anne Marie, and many of the Sacred Hearts Sisters that I had stayed with. Rachel and I had the opportunity to meet the Mother General from Rome who had heard a great deal about the performance. She gave my wife and I the most wonderful blessing and said the most beautiful things about the special gifts that actors and artists bring to the world. I wish I had had a recorder. An actor's life can be challenging and when someone understands the true value of art and expresses it directly to you, it can be very moving. I was holding back tears and Rachel (also an actor) had tears streaming down her face. The ceremony itself was very moving. To close, "Damien the Blessed" was sung by the community gathered there. After the intense pilgrimage of performance I have been on, every word of that song carried it's meaning into my heart. It was all I could do to keep from sobbing. Tears of sorrow, tears of joy. What a blessed way to complete a blessed journey.

May 4th- New Hope Retreat Center, Topside Molokai

It was so great to see Leoda and Mike and so many folks who were so instrumental in Rachel's and my first trip to Hawaii and our wedding. My destiny is married to the people of Molokai, and it was great to see all of them again. The performance had the ocean for a backdrop, a huge banyan tree to represent the tree in the cemetery at Kalaupapa, and live roosters for the sound effects. It was the perfect setting, and the roosters crowed on cue when I talked about them in the play. I spoke with Carol Franko after the show who had seen me perform the play on Molokai in 2006. The play talks about Fr Damien receiving "a call within a call" to work with the patients at Kalaupapa. Those words stuck with her, and she has since found her own "call within a call" by becoming the head nurse at Kalaupapa.

May 2nd- St Francis Church, Kalaupapa

I did a performance for residents and workers at Kalaupapa at St. Francis Church. I had the opportunity to go through my lines and do my acting preparation in the hall where there were a number of photos and paintings of Fr. Damien, Mother Marianne, and patients from the settlement throughout the years. It was a great gift to populate my imagination with these pictures before doing the performance. These images and the place rooted me firmly in the world of the play. Boogie, Auntie Ivy, and Mele were the Kalaupapa residents who were there for the performance. Here I am talking to the audience and trying to elicit sympathy from them for people with leprosy, and the people I'm talking to have had the disease. I'm looking out the back door and seeing the 3000 foot cliffs as I describe them in the play. After the play, Fr. Felix, a Belgian SSCC priest, said simply, "You look good in a cassock." Mele, Ivy, and Boogie all told me how much they appreciated the play. I tearfully told Mele how honored I felt for the opportunity to perform the play for them. One of the workers down there said, "I'm so glad I was here." Jennifer Cerny who works with National Parks was in tears after the show. So many of the patients she was so close to had died one after the other in the past couple of years, and the loss has been weighing on her. The play reinvigorated her own commitment to be there for the living residents and to continue the effort to find ways to maintain the sacredness of Kalaupapa into the future. I spoke with Fr. Damien in prayer after the performance, and the message I got from him in return was "This is what it's all about!"

May 1st to May 4th- Visit to Kalaupapa

I hiked up and down the Pali on Friday, May 1st. My wife, Rachel, flew in in the late afternoon. We had pupus and talked story by the pier with some of the residents and workers on Friday night. On Saturday, Jennifer Cerney from National Parks took Rachel and I down to Kalawao to visit St. Philomena Church, Fr. Damien's grave, and the site where we got married in 2006. I performed the play at 3pm at St. Francis Church. We played volleyball with folks working down there at 5:30. At around 8pm, Lionel, Jennifer, Rachel, and I went to go play Sakura cards with Elizabeth in the hospital. I feel really blessed that we had the opportunity to stay at Kalaupapa and that we were so accepted in the community there.

Thursday, April 30th- St. Anthony's High School, Maui

It was good to see these folks again. It was also good to connect to Fr. Roland about the play. He has a strong connection to Fr. Damien. After the performance, I was wandering around Wailuku and walked into a shop trying to find some good green tea. The woman who worked there and I got to talking. She told me that she used to visit her Uncle Gilbert at Kalaupapa all the time, but he has since passed away. She said that she really wanted to have a family reunion at Kalaupapa and visit her uncle's grave but doesn't know who to connect with about that. I later gave her information to Jennifer Cerney at Kalaupapa who will contact her about the possibility.

Wednesday, April 29th- Maria Lanakila Church, Maui

I got a standing ovation. I met a woman from my hometown of New Orleans. It turns out that my brother who is a podiatrist in New Orleans had operated on her foot two years ago. She also told me about a miracle which she attributes to Fr. Damien. She and her husband do whale research, and her husband was pierced through the chest by a swordfish that was 15 feet long and 1000 pounds on Damien's death day, April 15th, 2003. She had recently been on a pilgrimage to Kalaupapa and prayed to Fr. Damien intensely at the hospital. Her husband told her afterwards that he felt that Fr. Damien was the one performing the operation on him. He had a miraculous recovery and within a month was completely healed. So my brother operated on her foot and Fr. Damien operated on her husband. Amazing.

Tuesday, April 28th- St. Theresa's Church, Maui

In the Q&A after the performance, a woman asked about my personal faith life. I said that I am Catholic and that I practice zen meditation as a way of having a stronger connection with the divine. Fr. Terry Watanabe asked how the play has affected my journey as a person. I said that I teach theater and social justice courses at a Jesuit College in New Jersey and that I want to and do create theater with a redemptive and transformative quality to it. It think of this theater as the reverse of tragedy in that it takes suffering and turns it into something beautiful.

Monday, April 27th- Annunciation Parish, Big Island

It was good to see Deacon Bill McPeek who I had met in 2006. After the performance, Fr. Bob Schwarzhaupt asked the congregation to put their hands up towards me in blessing as he said a benediction on my trip and travels as I spread the word about Fr. Damien. A deep sense of trust in the rightness of this journey settled into my heart. A man said to me that he had read "The Heart of Fr. Damien" by Vital Jourdain and that I got it perfectly in my presentation- his anger, his kindness, his doubts.

Friday, April 24th- St. Catherine's Church, Kauai

The performance went very well. A native Hawaiian man came with his family. After the performance, he said that the play helps him to see that Fr Damien's life was guided by a strong relationship with the Eucharist and that such a relationship can aid him in his own life. There is nothing said in the play about the Sacred Hearts' intense practice of adoration of the host but somehow that came across to him. Fr. Remel told me that the play inspired him as a priest. It reminded him of the tremendous value of his work and revitalized the meaning of his own calling. Pretty powerful stuff.

Friday, April 24th- St. Catherine's School, Kauai

Celina Haigh, the principal of the school, is a very supportive and grounded person. The students were incredibly attentive and present to the play. A bird flew into the auditorium during the play, and I incorporated it into the acting of the scene. It was an outside scene so it fit right in. During the question and answer period someone said, "You must feel that Fr. Damien is very connected with you." I said, "I do. I really do." Celina Haigh told me afterwords that she thought "it was a mesmerizing performance, and you really were Fr. Damien."

Thursday, April 23rd- Leaving Oahu and taking stock of my time with the Sacred Heart Sisters

I stayed with the SSCC sisters in the Malia O Ka Malu Community from April 13th to April 22nd. Being in community with them had a profound impact on me as a person and in my understanding of Fr. Damien. Sr. Mary Dolorine and I had a long conversation in which she laid out for me the spirituality of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of which I did not have a clear understanding. She told me that the three most important things were: 1. That God loves you and wants to be loved in return; 2. The sustaining value of the symbol of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; and 3. the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Sr. Edna (93 years old) told me stories of her rebellious childhood and of eventually going to school with Catholic sisters who treated her like a Human Being instead of as a problem. She told of stealing into the church as a young girl and going up to the tabernacle and speaking from her heart to Jesus who she had found out lives in there. Talk about adoration of the host! Sr. Joan inspired me with stories of bilocation and miraculous healings in the lives of St. Anthony of Padua, Padre Pio, and Blessed Fr. Eustaquio, SSCC. Sr. Dolores was constantly checking in with me to make sure I had everything I needed and was getting enough to eat.

Wednesday, April 22nd- St. Jude Kapolei

St. Jude has an hour long period of adoration of the host before the mass in which the Blessed Sacrament is placed into the shining gold monstrance so that people can meditate upon it. I was thankful for the opportunity to practice this form of prayer which fed Fr. Damien so completely. I got another standing ovation after the performance. Aunty Puna who was living at Kalaupapa in 2006 when I first performed the play in Hawaii came to the performance. She had made a lei and came up to give it to me afterwards. She and I had a strong connection when I came last time, and it was so wonderful to see her again.

Tuesday, April 21st- St Michael's School

Performed in the church for students and parishioners in this Congregation of the Sacred Hearts Parish. My time with the sisters learning about the adoration of the host is having a profound impact on my performance. During the critical moments of the play when Fr. Damien has to summon all his spiritual resources to face the suffering in front of him, I am feeling palpably the presence of the blessed sacrament in the tabernacle feeding me as Fr. Damien feeds "his lepers." There were great questions from the students after the performance- "Why do you do this play?" "What's it like playing Fr. Damien?" "What's your favorite part of the play?" It gave me a lot to chew on. I talked to them about the image of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on the wall at the back of the church and told them that the power of that symbol is part of what gave Fr. Damien strength on Molokai. The parishioners came up to me after the show and were very moved- one person said that she felt it was an academy award winning performance. Wow. How do I deal with that kind of praise?

Monday, April 20th- St. Patrick's School

The principal, Sr Anne Clare, SSCC, said after the performance that the teachers were all talking about the performance and were very impressed. Fr Steven, an SSCC priest from Belgium, came to see the show. He hugged me and he was in tears. He said, "You really got him." He told me how jealous he was of my youth and how he wished that he could do as much to spread the word about Fr. Damien. I did a second performance for the little little ones (Pre K- 4th grade). I made sure to stress the operative words so that they could follow the story as closely as possible, and I went out into the audience and spoke directly to them when Fr Damien reads stories to the children.

Saturday, April 18th- St. Anthony Kailua

Friday, April 17th- St Ann's Kaneohe

I was pretty nervous for my first Hawaii performance since 2006; but somehow, when the performance was over, I received a standing ovation. Fr. Herman Gomes, a passionate man who understands the heart of Fr. Damien from the inside, asked me to say a prayer from my heart at the end of the performance. I concluded the brief prayer by saying, "I just want to give thanks for the Gift of Fr. Damien." People said beautiful things to me after the performance. Sacred Hearts provincial, Fr. Chris Keahi, and a woman who had played "Philomela" in an early version of the Damien play by playwright, Aldyth Morris, were in attendance.

Damien - One Man Play - Hawaii 2009

Damien - One Man Play in Hawaii