Acting up

A young couple are unexpectedly pregnant. Nine months later, despite sinister attempts to kill the infant, the couple find themselves with a beautiful baby boy to look after. Their miracle boy grows up in a dark, colourless country.

They teach him the story of the Great Artist sending his son to bring the colour back into the world. At the age of 12, the boy has begun to discover his true identity, his real father and the role he must fulfil . . . at the age of 30, against the hostility of the authorities, he launches his public career to bring the colour back!

Such is the scenario of 'Grey Daze', a multimedia dramatic allegory of the life of Jesus, performed by Rob Lacey and his wife Sandra Harnisch-Lacey. EN caught up with them at one of their performances for an interview.

EN: How would you describe what you do?

Rob: Exhausting! It's basically evangelism - though there are always lots of Christians at our events. I suppose we are translators. So many people have preconceived ideas about the gospel. But we are trying to show people what it is to have faith in today's world. 'Grey Daze' tries to portray Jesus in a way that gets past people's prejudices and fires their imaginations. Another show I do, on my own, is about my own faith-journey and struggle with self-esteem. Then there's the show retelling the prodigal son's story . . .

Sandra: We are also trying to open people up to their God-given creativity by using the arts in a prophetic way. We try to bring different angles - dealing with such issues as family, self-esteem and moral/ethical issues - which will challenge the world's ideas.

EN: So if Joe Bloggs comes in off the streets to watch one of your presentations, what are you hoping will happen to him?

Rob: We would love to see instant conversion, but often it's not like that. Hopefully it'll change his ideas that church is boring - full of hymnbooks and a Bible he can't understand. We hope to be part of a chain of events that leads him closer to conversion. The great thing about using a story is that God can say different things to different people according to where they are.

New life: new direction

EN: Tell us how you came to Christ?

Sandra: I'm German and I grew up in a small town north of Nurnberg in Bavaria and was taken along to the Lutheran church by my family, but it did not mean that much. Then, when I was 14, we had a new pastor who was really into youth work. He took us away to a little Bible camp, and to my surprise, there I met some 'in', interesting/trendy people who were Christians! For the first time, I heard about a relationship with God. I had heard this before at church, but it got lost in the liturgy. This got through to me and I became a Christian.

Rob: Cardiff was home for me. I was taken along to a Brethren assembly and became a Christian aged seven. The problem was I thought that becoming a Christian would instantly stop me being naughty in school, and when I found my old ways didn't instantly disappear I thought 'I can't be a Christian', so next week at the gospel meeting, I came to Christ again . . . and again . . . and again.

EN: How did you get into acting?

Sandra: I had always been into gymnastics and had competed at the equivalent of county level for a long time. I always wanted a job where I could combine the physical side and the arty side of my nature. At 19, I left home and spent a year at a Bible school in Sweden which had a great emphasis on dance and drama. We performed all over Scandinavia. That was where I made the decision to pursue acting professionally.

Rob: There was a lot of energy in our youth group and the leaders wanted to direct it to good purpose. They got me acting out Bible stories when I was about 14. I enjoyed it and found that the response was good. Then I realised the at God had given me something of a platform to say something to people, which, of course, meant that I had to be more serious about what the dramas could communicate. We started writing our own sketches, stories and poems and learning the craft of it all. This was just in our spare time. By then I was doing an economics degree, and then worked in a bank for three years. But the acting was getting busier, and after doing our first Spring Harvest in 1986, we went full-time under the name of the Trap Door Theatre Co. for about five years. A bit of re-training and then I went solo in '92.

EN: How did you two meet?

Sandra: We met at a church in London. I came to the Desmond Jones Mime and Physical Theatre School at Shepherd's Bush. Rob had been on the same course a year before me. And we met, fell in love, got married, and now we do this work for Christ together.

On stage

EN: Is it a living?

Rob: It is a bit of a struggle, there are lots of hidden costs and living in London is expensive. But it works OK with just the two of us. Trap Door had five full-time people and that was difficult to make work financially.

EN: Where do you find your material?

Rob: We produce it ourselves from issues we've been dealing with and things God's been teaching us. My show on self-esteem issues helped me though some problems, and because it was honest, it helped other people wrestling with similar things. Recently we've been working on material together. We have similar views but not identical, which is good because it stops us going straight for the obvious. We also draw in other friends to help on larger projects.

Sandra: We have different areas of expertise. Rob is more the craftsman with words, and I'm better on the physical and visual side. We have different strengths which augment each other.

EN: How do you deal with the temptation to pride which goes with any work (like preaching) where you are standing up in front of people and grabbing their attention?

Rob: I struggled a lot with that in the early days. Inevitably your ego is involved, but do you run away from that so that you can never be tempted, or do you try to see the abilities as gifts that God has entrusted you with to be used to point people towards him, not you? It's an ongoing issue, but now that I'm more convinced that God loves me for who I am, than for what I do, it's not such a big deal.

Sandra: For me it was always a struggle, because to be a good dancer, in a way, you have to 'show off'. Or at least it could be seen that way. I had to learn to give it to God and say: 'I want to do it for you.' And if you're going to do it for God, then it has to be the best you can do.

EN: Suppose someone reads this in EN and says to themselves: 'It would be great to use something like this at our church, but we're only small, we could never get a big audience.' Can you do anything for them?

Rob: We do a number of different shows designed for different situations and audiences. We'd find out more about the setting and suggest something that would be suitable.

Preaching and performing

EN: Rob, you've recently written a book called Are We Getting Through? What prompted you to write that?

Rob: Initially it was many people asking if my scripts were available. I had mixed feelings about just letting people have the scripts. I was happy for them to be used, but I knew this might well stop people from tapping into their own creativity. So I resolved to make the material available, but give some springboard ideas and principles to help people create their own. Then because a good proportion of my stuff has come from my own spiritual journey, I realised I couldn't talk about the creative process without sharing some of my story.
This made me focus again on the way Jesus used stories to connect with the public. Mark 4.33,34 tells us that when he spoke to the people he only ever used parables (leaving the explanations to the disciples). I've observed a number of speakers come to a similar conclusion about reaching people in today's so-called post-modern society. In evangelism, stories really connect with people, because stories are the language of today - films, soaps, documentaries, etc. Certainly this is not to replace gospel preaching because we need that. Maybe that comes once people realise they are interested. Before that, we can use the power of stories, as Jesus did, to engage people and draw them in. So the book is a fusion of different styles of communication, designed to help people consider how Jesus' model of telling stories can be used in evangelism today. It doesn't give all the answers, but tries to get people thinking about evangelism. Hence the title.

EN: You are booked up until the summer presenting 'Grey Daze' in different parts of the country, may God bless you in it and give you lots of energy!

If you want to contact Rob and Sandra, write to The Administrator, Going Public Trust, 101 Welham Road, Streatham, London SW16 6QH, or telephone 0207 639 8900.

Photographs by courtesy of Grace Robinette of the European Southern Baptist News Service.

An interview with performers Rob and Sandra Lacey