Singapore-based Actress Brings St Clare to a Parish Stage for Franciscan Jubilee

A Singapore-based actress has taken the life of St Clare of Assisi into a parish church, staging a play on the saint as Catholics here mark the Jubilee Year of St Francis.

Sharda Harrison wrote and performs the title role in "TO GAZE: St Clare of Assisi," which opened on the evening of October 16 at the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Bukit Batok. The second and closing performance is set for 8:15 p.m. on October 17.

ANA and Saint Max presented the production, and the organizers said Harrison also directed it. Fr. Rowland Yeo, OFM, a Franciscan friar, plays St. Francis. According to the poster, all proceeds will go to the Franciscan friars' development office.

The Jubilee marks 800 years since Francis died in 1226. One of the organizers from CANA said that after the Jubilee celebrations for Francis, the group wanted to end the year with "the precious legacy of St Clare." Harrison was approached because she had written, directed and played St Thérèse of Lisieux in "St Thérèse: The Little Way" for the same organisers in 2024, the organiser said.

Before the play began, Fr. Michael D'Cruz, OFM, a Franciscan friar overseeing the event for St Mary of the Angels, welcomed the audience by linking the two saints. "You cannot really tell the story of one without the other," he said. Referring to the haze outside the church that evening, he added: "The haze outside will pass."

On stage, Clare speaks directly to the audience and walks them through her life, from her birth in Assisi, "1194 to be precise," she says, to her last Christmas in 1252.

Scenes include her family's search for a husband when she was 17, played as a dating-app parody in which the audience votes on suitors shown on a screen; her escape from home on Palm Sunday night to join Francis and his brothers; the cutting of her hair; and a confrontation with her father, who shouts: "Clare! How dare you run away from me?"

Clare replies: "I belong to Christ now, Father."

Lay actors play Clare's companions and the early friars. Clare also picks out women in the audience and names them as members of her growing community.

Later scenes cover the rebuilding of the San Damiano church, which Clare calls her home "for the next 40 years of my life until the very last day"; Francis's final illness and death; and Clare's letters to Agnes of Prague, a princess who left her position to join the Poor Ladies.

The script also takes up the "privilege of poverty" that Clare sought for her sisters, which she describes as being "given the right to possess nothing." In another scene, Clare explains that she wrote a rule for her community herself, "not a rule written for us by somebody else, not a rule written for us by Francis."

Asked what audiences should take away, the organizer replied: "Why is poverty a privilege?" The closing night coincides with the United Nations' International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17.

At the curtain call, Harrison stepped out of character, telling the audience she had "to drop the Italian accent," and thanked the CANA and Saint Max team, the crew and her family. She said the October 17 performance would be "a bigger, grander farewell."

The evening ended with a short presentation by Linus, founder of Saint Max, on the television series "The Chosen," followed by a trailer. A closing speaker invited those present to bring family and friends to the last performance.