The Devil Wears Stola

On Saturday, I watched my first live-streamed play. Local theatres and dance companies have offered shows during this pandemic time, but they were mostly pre-recorded. Tonight, Factory Theatre was premiering on Twitch a one-person play called acts of faith.

It opened inside of a city apartment with its bay windows and water radiator. A young black woman (Natasha Mumba) proceeded to tell us a joke about Jesus on the cross. This was the titular Faith who grew up in Kitwe, Zambia. At the start of each new scene, she would regale us with another religious joke including several with the well-known "... and a rabbi" set-up.

Faith engagingly told us about her life, mostly between 13-years-old and her current 18. A "miracle baby" who arrived after several miscarriages, she lived with her mother while her father and brothers were off working the copper mines. She became an actual miracle to her neighbours when Faith convinced a snobby class-mate to stop her bullying ways by pretending to channel God's Words. This lie caused the first major rift with her mother.

The second, which led to 3 years of estrangement between them, came after Faith visited her cousins in Lusaka. There, she met "Father Hot Stuff" with his English accent, tousled blonde hair, tattoos, and hip sermons. But Faith quickly found out this holy man had grabby hands. Unfortunately, her mother could not accept her daughter's testimony.

Disillusioned with the church, Faith sat in the back pews with all the "sinners" and away from her pious mother. Things came to a head when Father Cody, after making his Instagram-documented missionary tour through various African cities and always with his arm around a young girl, came to Kitwe. We then found out what happened next, why Faith was now living in Toronto, and the uncanny experiences that followed.

I first saw playwright David Yee back in 2016. Given the magical realist tone of Acquiesce, I wasn't surprised with the seemingly supernatural elements nor the push-pull between parent and child, filial tradition and youthful modernity in acts of faith. But as essentially an oral memoir taking place in a single setting, the latter lacked an immersiveness that would allow an audience to, well, have faith in the material. As such, I felt some details seemed cliché when recited whereas a bigger production might imbued them with more truth.

But Mumba was excellent in her role. She believably combined mischievous irreverence, heartfelt belief, and painful loss. Faith was a woman you were happy to talk to and sad to hear about her trauma. We left her not knowing whether there was a happy ending for Faith, but we were hopeful of a miracle.