In Dzieci’s living example of Holy Theatre, a group of medieval village idiots are forced to enact their own Mass, due to the untimely death of their beloved pastor. Bursting with buffoonery and comic audience participation,
Fools Mass is balanced with lovely hymns and chants from the 8th to the 14th centuries, creating a seminal work that has been Dzieci’s signature piece since 1998.
“Moving between the sublime and the ridiculous, drawing its audience through laughter toward participation and contemplation, the work resists being categorized as either theater or religion, becoming both at once in an event experienced by many as transformative.” — The Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd Edition
“’Fools Mass’, with a nod to Beckett, begs the question, ‘How do we, as people, manage when our ‘God’—our leader, our guide—does not show up?’ Left to our own devices, what do we make in the vacuum? How do we connect with one another in a way that creates the thing we are missing? How do we climb out of our despair and disappointment and relate in order to make a world with our fellows? How do we go on when our hearts are broken? I think Dzieci Theatre gives us a fine answer: through enacting communal rituals, like Mass or theater or breaking bread with others, we embody the thing we’ve been waiting for. Thank you, Dzieci, for this transporting and transforming theatrical experience.” - Rebecca Hoffman, LMSW
“The performers entered so truthfully into their characters and related so lovingly with the spectators, we had no choice but be engaged and to engage in wonder. Dzieci is not simply a troupe of performers but a community seeking together a profound relationship with the Spiritual.” ~ Rex Deverell, Minister Emeritus of Calvary Baptist Church in Toronto
“As we were walking away from the performance, a car with other audience members flagged us down to get our reaction. We were all so moved, we didn’t quite know what to say, but we all just stopped everything and talked about theater and ritual and God and spirit. How often does that happen?” - Patricia Kambitch
“I don’t know any other group, which combines music, drama, dance, and spirituality in the way that they do.”
- Rev. Daniel Meeter – Old First Reformed Church, Brooklyn
“Dzieci is a wonderful example of the spiritual intensity possible when theatre engages the age-old mysteries of faith and the human experience.” – Canon Tom Miller, Cathedral St. John the Divine
“I felt more ‘at home’ tonight during your performance than I’ve felt in the 10 years I’ve been at the seminary. A major gift to me. Thanks!” - Virginia Wiles, Professor of New Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
“I cannot put into words the experience I had watching the Fools Mass at St. John the Divine. It was amazing and beautiful, and so very powerful. I’m honored, thankful, and humbled to have been there. Thank you for what was the most beautiful service/performance I have ever witnessed.” - Sarah Rippy
“It wasn’t a play. It was a revelation.” - Bayard Walker
“We found the performance beautiful, moving, funny and poignant, and talked of it the whole subway ride home.” - W. Laurie Ewer
“Absolutely incredible. So deeply grateful to have been transformed by this powerful and soul stirring work.” - Isis Pheonix
“Thank you Dzieci for your beautiful offering. My soul felt cleansed and clarified by Fools Mass.” – Carol Ann Graham
“If you do this every Sunday, I’ll make it my church.” - Anonymous
“Fools Mass took my breath away! Can’t wait till the next Dzieci performance.” - Anais Haven
“Your mission is so deeply spiritual and your portrayal of the simple people in the Fools Mass can only come from a solid respect for those who experience life in a different way.” – Sister Pat Klemm, OSF
“Experiencing ‘Fools Mass’ was a hope filled, delightful, and heartbreaking experience. Thank you for the performance. It truly broadened my ideas of what theatre and worship can be.” - Eric Hoffman
“The mass ‘worked’ as no Mass ever will for me. I think it’s because only the fools can tell truth in an acceptable way. The music is exquisite. The love and kindness of the “fools” who accompanied me to my seat after the reading touched me to the quick. It makes me almost innocent to be a spectator/participant and it fills me with love for you all.” - Carl Lehmanhaupt
“Through my participation in this drama, the troupe transformed my perspective in one fell swoop. Suddenly, things that I had known in my head and had said with my mouth, about inclusivity and the nature of the holy, were embodied by Dzieci and experienced by me in a way that connected me—body, mind and spirit—to the deep order and transcendent reality of the universe. I name this as a mystical experience—a knowing beyond rationality that discloses in a way they change a self and their world.” - Renee House, Dean and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
“Dzieci is devoted to the idea that theater is essentially a form of ‘communion’. It uses theater work to seek an ever-greater understanding of what it means to share, to give of oneself in performance.”
~ Tom F. Driver, The Paul Tillich Professor of Theology and Culture Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
“The lovely singing voices help give a quality of holiness that lets this performance really ring of simple souls reaching for the divine.” - nytheatre.com
“I attended another staging of Dzieci’s Fool’s Mass recently and was again overcome by its power, humor, sweetness and devotion. It shows, in a very dramatic and humorous manner, precisely how we should encounter and participate in the actions and rituals of the Mass: with excitement, enthusiasm and vigor. It’s a lesson about faith and the awe of the faithful.
If you live in this city, you should not miss out on seeing this production.
If you are a Catholic not living in this city who has ever been to Mass and either been elated or confounded by what you experienced there, travel to NYC to see one of these shows. You will not be sorry by what you find there.” – Jason Anthony
Fools Mass
In Dzieci’s living example of Holy Theatre, a group of medieval village idiots are forced to enact their own Mass, due to the untimely death of their beloved pastor. Bursting with buffoonery and comic audience participation,
Fools Mass is balanced with lovely hymns and chants from the 8th to the 14th centuries, creating a seminal work that has been Dzieci’s signature piece since 1998.
“Moving between the sublime and the ridiculous, drawing its audience through laughter toward participation and contemplation, the work resists being categorized as either theater or religion, becoming both at once in an event experienced by many as transformative.” — The Encyclopedia of Religion 2nd Edition
“’Fools Mass’, with a nod to Beckett, begs the question, ‘How do we, as people, manage when our ‘God’—our leader, our guide—does not show up?’ Left to our own devices, what do we make in the vacuum? How do we connect with one another in a way that creates the thing we are missing? How do we climb out of our despair and disappointment and relate in order to make a world with our fellows? How do we go on when our hearts are broken? I think Dzieci Theatre gives us a fine answer: through enacting communal rituals, like Mass or theater or breaking bread with others, we embody the thing we’ve been waiting for. Thank you, Dzieci, for this transporting and transforming theatrical experience.” - Rebecca Hoffman, LMSW
“The performers entered so truthfully into their characters and related so lovingly with the spectators, we had no choice but be engaged and to engage in wonder. Dzieci is not simply a troupe of performers but a community seeking together a profound relationship with the Spiritual.” ~ Rex Deverell, Minister Emeritus of Calvary Baptist Church in Toronto
“As we were walking away from the performance, a car with other audience members flagged us down to get our reaction. We were all so moved, we didn’t quite know what to say, but we all just stopped everything and talked about theater and ritual and God and spirit. How often does that happen?” - Patricia Kambitch
“I don’t know any other group, which combines music, drama, dance, and spirituality in the way that they do.”
- Rev. Daniel Meeter – Old First Reformed Church, Brooklyn
“Dzieci is a wonderful example of the spiritual intensity possible when theatre engages the age-old mysteries of faith and the human experience.” – Canon Tom Miller, Cathedral St. John the Divine
“I felt more ‘at home’ tonight during your performance than I’ve felt in the 10 years I’ve been at the seminary. A major gift to me. Thanks!” - Virginia Wiles, Professor of New Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
“I cannot put into words the experience I had watching the Fools Mass at St. John the Divine. It was amazing and beautiful, and so very powerful. I’m honored, thankful, and humbled to have been there. Thank you for what was the most beautiful service/performance I have ever witnessed.” - Sarah Rippy
“It wasn’t a play. It was a revelation.” - Bayard Walker
“We found the performance beautiful, moving, funny and poignant, and talked of it the whole subway ride home.” - W. Laurie Ewer
“Absolutely incredible. So deeply grateful to have been transformed by this powerful and soul stirring work.” - Isis Pheonix
“Thank you Dzieci for your beautiful offering. My soul felt cleansed and clarified by Fools Mass.” – Carol Ann Graham
“If you do this every Sunday, I’ll make it my church.” - Anonymous
“Fools Mass took my breath away! Can’t wait till the next Dzieci performance.” - Anais Haven
“Your mission is so deeply spiritual and your portrayal of the simple people in the Fools Mass can only come from a solid respect for those who experience life in a different way.” – Sister Pat Klemm, OSF
“Experiencing ‘Fools Mass’ was a hope filled, delightful, and heartbreaking experience. Thank you for the performance. It truly broadened my ideas of what theatre and worship can be.” - Eric Hoffman
“The mass ‘worked’ as no Mass ever will for me. I think it’s because only the fools can tell truth in an acceptable way. The music is exquisite. The love and kindness of the “fools” who accompanied me to my seat after the reading touched me to the quick. It makes me almost innocent to be a spectator/participant and it fills me with love for you all.” - Carl Lehmanhaupt
“Through my participation in this drama, the troupe transformed my perspective in one fell swoop. Suddenly, things that I had known in my head and had said with my mouth, about inclusivity and the nature of the holy, were embodied by Dzieci and experienced by me in a way that connected me—body, mind and spirit—to the deep order and transcendent reality of the universe. I name this as a mystical experience—a knowing beyond rationality that discloses in a way they change a self and their world.”
- Renee House, Dean and Associate Professor of Practical Theology, New Brunswick Theological Seminary
“Dzieci is devoted to the idea that theater is essentially a form of ‘communion’. It uses theater work to seek an ever-greater understanding of what it means to share, to give of oneself in performance.”
~ Tom F. Driver, The Paul Tillich Professor of Theology and Culture Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
“The lovely singing voices help give a quality of holiness that lets this performance really ring of simple souls reaching for the divine.” - nytheatre.com
“I attended another staging of Dzieci’s Fool’s Mass recently and was again overcome by its power, humor, sweetness and devotion. It shows, in a very dramatic and humorous manner, precisely how we should encounter and participate in the actions and rituals of the Mass: with excitement, enthusiasm and vigor. It’s a lesson about faith and the awe of the faithful.
If you live in this city, you should not miss out on seeing this production.
If you are a Catholic not living in this city who has ever been to Mass and either been elated or confounded by what you experienced there, travel to NYC to see one of these shows. You will not be sorry by what you find there.” – Jason Anthony
On Fools Mass
Transcendence found in a `Fools’ Mass – National Catholic Reporter
Dzeici | Showman/Shaman
http://www.dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/bocklerfools.pdf
Catholic Churches of Manhattan: *Fool’s Mass
pics-Fools Toronto
pics-Fools Ft. Tilden 12/18/10 (10)