ARTICLES

The Little Flower Show

Local Actress Portrays Saint Therese in One-Woman Play

BY MARY SHORT

Saint Luke Productions was founded in 1980 when Shakespearean actor Leonardo Defilippis toured the country with his first one-man play on the Gospel of Luke. Twenty-five years later, a half million people have watched the company's performances. The dramas have expanded to other spiritual topics: The Song of Songs, St. Francis of Assisi, John of the Cross, Maximilian: Saint of Auschwitz, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, and Therese -- The Story of a Soul. The last is the first one-woman offering by Saint Luke Productions, and its actress is San Diego native Jacqueline Rez. Recently, the 19-year-old Rez spoke with me as she prepared for a run of performances in her hometown.

"I grew up in the La Jolla Pacific Beach areas," Rez said. "We moved around to different parishes, but mostly we attended All Hallows in La Jolla."

What was your faith experience like when you were growing up?

"In my family, I've always had a very strong faith background. My parents instilled Catholic values in me from early on. The faith was integrated in the family life. We would always go to church together on Sundays. My mom has a rosary group that meets every Thursday, and that was always a big part of our life, going to her rosary group. I went to Catholic school at Nativity for 7th and 8th grade, and then I went to Our Lady of Peace for high school."

Rez attended a year of college at Baylor University in Texas before being offered the role of Therese. "I wasn't exactly happy at Baylor," Rez said. "Not because of the school itself but because my passion in life lies in musical theater and they didn't offer musical theater opportunities. So I picked up a copy of Backstage West, a newspaper geared toward actors, and I saw an audition notice for Therese. I had seen St. Luke Productions before. Leonardo Defilippis had come through San Diego before. So I was ready to audition for them because I knew of the good company. I sent in a videotape and they contacted me after that. After a month's time of sending in monologues and a voice recording, three weeks into the semester at Baylor University, he offered me the role. So I flew out to Oregon and started with the company on September 11, 2005."

Were you involved with theater growing up?

"I have been in performance my entire life," offered Rez. "I started when I was three years old dancing, and I did competitive dancing until I was about 16. Then I found out that I could sing, so I have been taking voice lessons ever since. I've always loved musicals, and I did some of those. In high school I was heavily involved with cheer, which takes up your entire life, so I didn't do any acting. But the summer before my freshman year in college I did Les Miserables, and I realized after that there was really nothing else that I could ever do again."

Were you a devotee of Saint Therese before this play?

"I was actually. I have always grown up knowing who she was, we have a painting of her in our house. When I was in the second grade, we were to read an autobiography and do a little report by dressing up as a person in command and coming into class. All the other girls were doing Amelia Earhart and Jacqueline Kennedy and people like that, and I did St Therese."

What is it like to work for Leonardo Defilippis?

"Actually his wife Patti Defilippis is the one who put the play together. She is the writer, and she did most of the directing of the play. It's my own interpretation, but with her direction and with her suggestions, I think that it has become what it is which is very beautiful."

How did you prepare for the role?

"I did a lot of reading and research. The play is pretty much word for word from Therese's Story of the Soul and Her Last Conversations. Her Last Conversations is the book put together by her sisters of everything she said at her deathbed. They wrote down everything because they knew how important it would be later. Also researching about the time period was helpful, researching about the medical procedures during the time."

How did you decide out how to play the part: humorous, emotional, serious?

"You know it is just complete inspiration. There wasn't a moment where I sat down and said, 'Okay, this part should be funny and this part should be sad,' it just kind of comes to you naturally. I believe that it is through the inspiration of Saint Therese. I think really what this play is about is making people understand that Therese is a real person. Not this figurine statue that you can't touch, and I think that is how she wanted me to portray her, as somebody who you can really relate to. Somebody who is comical and ... when she was a child she was a real brat. She wasn't always this little angel floating around. No, she is human, and through that human example we are able to more fully connect and live by her example."

How is to perform a one-woman show?

"It's quite different because usually you have the companionship of a large cast, and a lot of energy comes from the cast. It's very difficult and it took a lot of prayer, fortitude, and tears. But it has been a wonderful experience, and it has taught me to rely not just on myself, that I have so many wonderful people praying for me and really trusting in God that He can do this. Because nothing is impossible with God. And it has taught me so much about my faith and about myself that I wouldn't trade the experience for anything."

What do you think Therese's message is to the world?

"Her message is just one of great love. Like she says, her vocation is love. It is not difficult, it is not hard to under stand, it is just love. And she wants to get that out there, she feels that it is very important, she wants to spend her heaven doing good for the world, loving the world, showing people how to love."

What have you learned about her from playing this part?

"That she has a great sense of humor. Therese is very impish, very childlike, and this play helps you see that. She's not someone on a pedestal, but in fact she is someone who you can really relate to. For example, in the play, there is a time when she wants to go and help an elderly nun, Sister Saint Pierre, and take her to the rectory. She imagines all of a sudden that she is in a ballroom, rather than in the convent and she starts dancing across the stage. Because she did it with so much love, it is no longer a chore to take the elderly, rather cranky old nun to the rectory.

"Everywhere the company goes we can feel her presence. And we know that she is always with us because when things are going wrong, we are setting up and not being able to get the equipment to work all the time, we say a few little prayers to Saint Therese and suddenly everything is working again."

How has the experience been an extension of your own personal faith?

"Oh, it has deepened it very much so. Every time I finish doing a performance something new comes to me from the play. You always learn something new because there is so much information it is hard to take in all at once. So even after doing it about 30 times it's still very fresh and very new each time.

"I had an awakening experience when we were in Philadelphia. We were able to perform for the Carmelite cloister there, and it kind of put it all in perspective for me because you can imagine what a Carmelite convent is but you have no idea until you go and actually see. That was an amazing experience. We put on the play for nine sisters in the convent, all cloistered obviously, and we did the play in an eight-by-eight foot speak room and they were behind the grill. It was very interesting and a very moving experience."

What has been the reaction to the play?

"Everybody who comes to see it absolutely loves it, and it is not me per se the actor as being so good. It is just the message of the play. It is so uplifting so encouraging and it gives so many people hope. I have had people come up to me at the end of the play and just pour out the deepest darkest secrets in their hearts to me because it has moved them so much. And they are not telling me this, they are telling Saint Therese, because I am dressed as the character and I am delivering her thoughts and her words. A woman came up to me one night after the performance and told me that her daughter, on her deathbed as she was dying from anorexia, had said some of the most beautiful things that Saint Therese had also said. She had no idea that Saint Therese had said these things also, and it just gave her so much comfort and peace about her daughter's death."

What is your plan for the future?

"I'm going to go back to school, but this is just a wonderful experience for me -- to be able to start my acting career in this beautiful way with Saint Therese, and to stabilize my morals and my Catholic foundation. It's definitely a beautiful way to start in this industry.

Therese -- The Story of a Soul is playing in parishes throughout San Diego in late November and December. Call Saint Luke Productions at 503-546-5685 for a schedule.

TOP