The Ancestral Power of Father Bauer

Ken and I spent a few moments reflecting on the legacy of Father Bauer in our lives, which led me to an AHA moment. I realize that the Bauer Theatre at the centre of the StFX campus has been a touchstone for me ever since I arrived on campus almost 50 years ago.   How could that be? I am not an actor—I haven’t strutted the boards since the Christmas Concert at S. S. # 16 in southern Ontario when I was in Grade 8. Nor am I a playwright—or only when I use popular theatre as part of my adult education practice, in which participants and audience members become the true playwrights and performers. 

I was on the founding Board of Directors for Festival Antigonish in 1987 in my capacity as the manager of service operations and summer conferences at StFX.  It was in that capacity that I crossed paths with Father Bauer almost daily from 1975 to 1995 as he made his way to meals in the Priests’ Dining Room in Morrison Hall, right above my office. For several years, I and other female staff in the Residence Office  shared a washroom with the StFX priests. We had to check for black shoes under the cubicle doors before entering!!  When I became a faculty member in the Department of Adult Education in 1997, Fr. Bauer and I continued to have “Where are they now?” conversations in the courtyard.

It was in my management capacity and as a theatre patron that I came to forge a life friendship with Jeannie MacKay (Smith). Jeannie performed in lead roles for Theatre Antigonish and served as the Director from 1977 to 1979 succeeding James Colbeck and preceding Addy Doucette. I learned from Jeannie that Fr. Bauer had been the director of theatre at StFX before the Bauer Theatre— formerly the gymnasium– became the home for Theatre Antigonish.  Fr. Bauer continued to take a lively interest in the theatre and was a mediator along with the Sisters of St. Martha in the 1978 uproar over Jeannie’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the University Auditorium.  The Catholic governance right up to the Board of Governors banned the performance in the Auditorium, considered sacrilege, disturbing daily mass held right above in the University Chapel.  Perhaps some of them had witnessed the rehearsals in which choreographer Fiona Griffiths created the seductive dance moves for the Tormenter and Mary Magdalene with King Herod and Jesus. Father Bauer’s and others’ efforts to reverse the ban were in vain so with the help of the Marthas, Jesus Christ Superstar was resurrected in the Parish Centre. A makeshift theatre with a one-time thrust stage was built.  A young Andrew Murray, now town councilor, was credited with masks and headdresses for this production, and some forty-four years later, Andrew brought his invention of the “social distancing hug” to John’s 80th birthday party cum climate rally in Chisholm Park in February 2022.  Also, some 40 years on from when Bob Murray played King Herod in the 1978 production of Jesus Christ Superstar, John sang with Bob in the Men’s Choir of St. James United Church.  When I told Jeannie I was writing this blog, she remembered that every one of the priests who were incensed came to the performance and told her “It wasn’t that bad!” I also learned from Jeannie that Fiona was not only choreographer and dancer but an emergency room nurse—a practitioner of the healing arts before Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!) and HARP (H-ealing A-rts R-econciling P-eoples).  In 1978, Fiona was an advocate for seat belts BEFORE mandatory seat belts became law in Nova Scotia in 1985. She convinced Jeannie!