All the World's a Stage

"The greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us, but not our character." – Henry Ford

In 11th grade, I played the part of the Stage Manager in a production of Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Since the Stage Manager is on stage for virtually the entire play and narrates much of the action, I had to memorize volumes of pages of lines… something I could never do today.

The following year, our high school play was a musical called “Mack & Mabel,” which depicted the real-life story of silent film star Mabel Normand and her director/lover Mack Sennett. The story was written by Michael Stewart, and Jerry Herman (of “Hello Dolly” and “Mame” fame) authored both the lyrics and the musical score. Since my vocal abilities were – and still are – average at best, I was given a non-singing role as Mr. Fox, one of the producers of the Keystone Cops comedies.

One of the keys to portraying a role on stage is “getting into character.” As much as possible, you want to internalize the personality, attributes, and tendencies of the person you are playing. For instance, as the Stage Manager, I was required to clench an unlit pipe between my teeth and then – slowly and thoughtfully – to remove it whenever I had some dialogue to speak. The same goes for playing Mr. Fox, only this time it was an unlit cigar. In the latter case, I also had my hair “powdered” to portray a much older man.

Playing a real or imaginary character is one thing. Who you are in real life is quite another.

Aside from acting, one of the many definitions of the word “character” is “the good qualities of a person that usually include moral or emotional strength, honesty, and fairness.” Another word for character is “integrity” which can be defined as “who you are when no one is looking.”

My prayer is that people think of me as a person with character… and not just “a character.” Likewise, I pray that the people who know me best also think I have integrity. In both cases, all I am trying to do is follow the cues of my Heavenly Director by modeling the life of His Son.

Far too often, I forget or flub my lines when it comes to living for Jesus. Hopefully, there are still quite a few performances left for me to master my part before the final curtain falls and God offers His ultimate review.

“For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.” 2 Timothy 4:6 (BSB)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President