You can expect to laugh and be entertained while taking in a more serious topic of life and death and heaven and hell if you see the stage play “Hell No! Heaven Yes!,” at the Oasis of Love Church, 190 Chester Ave., Mansfield.
The Oasis of Love Church and Faith Productions will present the free live stage production at 5 p.m., Dec. 1. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. The cast is made up of people from the Oasis church as well as other churches from the surrounding communities.
“I felt inspired to do a play and I wanted to do something for our church and to reach out into the community in a positive way of entertaining and bringing souls into the kingdom,” said the shows playwright, Helen Black.
The play is about a spiritual awakening, Black said. It covers a variety of current socials issues in and out of the church. She described a scene from the play where one of the senior church mothers gossips about everyone in the church while at an after-church dinner.
“Scene two is called ‘All in the Family,’” she said. “It covers rejection, rebellion, depression, stress and lust.”
At the end of the play, all character must face their mortality to see if their name is written in the Lambs Book of Life, a Christian “book” where one’s name must be written in order to enter into heaven.
“In the previous scenes, the characters get into accidents and the die,” said Black. “They get to ask, ‘Is my name written in the book?’”
Bessie Marsh plays the character of Mary Nash, the gossipy senior church mother.
“She is self centered and very arrogant,” she said. “She’s always in church, but you have to watch and see if the church is in her.”
Marsh said playing this character is a departure from her true personality and love for the Lord.
“People have to realize that no matter what changes in the church, God’s Word doesn’t change,” she said. “And as I’m playing this character, I’m thinking, ‘Lord keep my heart because I don’t want to be that type of person.’”
Black has written other church plays in the past. She said she feels it’s important as a Christian to start with the people in the church then doing a “secular” play.
“The reason that I did it from a church base was because the scripture has touched my heart and (God) says first begin at the House of God,” Black said. “And so I wanted to do an awakening for the church.”
Jeremee Butts, youth pastor at Oasis of Love Church, plays the role of Jesus in the play. He recalled a scene in the play where his character and the character of the devil were both in Sunday morning church together.
“I had to put the devil out of my house,” he said.
Butts encouraged the youth and their parents to come see the show. There will be scenes concerning social issues of absent fathers, single mothers and the sometimes anger that can build up in a child because of their life situation.
“I think it will be an eye-opener for our young people to make better choices,” he said. “And to reach out and talk to somebody about why they’re angry.”
At the end of the play, some of the characters go to heaven and some are cast down to the pit of hell, Marsh said. “Even if you can’t relate to a certain character, everybody can relate to heaven or hell,” she said.
