The Tricky Part

Last night I saw The Tricky Part written and acted by Martin Moran. The play is based upon a book of the same title, which I am now reading.

Martin told of his experience as a twelve year old boy being sexually misused by a 30 year old man, Bob, and how many years later Martin still carries that boy within. It is not the same story as those in the headlines the last few years of priests molesting altar boys, but runs in parallel with them. Martin was an altar boy and attended a Catholic school as a child, and while Bob was not a priest, he was Martin’s camp counselor.

The play is intimate and honest, a blend of emerging sexual awareness, emotional need and loneliness, spiritual questioning and guilt, desire and manipulation. When he describes his relationship with Bob, it is not that Bob was just a trespasser. Bob was also a friend and teacher. The relationship continued off and on for three years because Martin needed much of what Bob offered even as the boy was being manipulated by the man.

This is all in the context of the Catholic school with the nuns and priests, seen with all of their strengths, weakness, and flaws, preparing the children for life. As the boy goes between physical encounters with Bob and conversations with the nuns, none could have known how each person’s ideas of God, Sin and “mortal sin,” sexuality and guilt, and love would be put together. The mind of the not-yet pubescent male tried to make sense of his experiences, and the adult Martin is still exploring the meaning.

What stunned me as I listened to him retell the story – for who knows how many times now – was how gentle and vulnerable he still seemed to be some thirty six years later. Of course, he is being the actor. But he is retelling his own story and the depth of his past could still be felt. The honesty and courage of making public the most intimate of experiences and thoughts was incredibly powerful. I will never forget it. What I heard in that room of 35 people was as intimate as what I hear in the privacy of providing spiritual direction. I am amazed at the ministry he is offering to those trying to understand.

I had decided to buy his book before it was over, and as I stood in the lobby waiting to talk to him, I was aware of how different he seemed. He was greeting friends and members of the audience, being bright and cheerful. He had admitted in the play how shy he had been, and as another person who deals with shyness, I could see him acting in the expected role. It was a necessary separation from the intense experience in the theater.

When he turned to me, with my recently bought book in hand, he asked me my name so he could personalize the note. Feeling awkward, I asked him to repeat the line in the play which summarizes what The Tricky Part is all about. He replied “Is it possible that what harms us might come to restore us?”

His note was short. “To Bruce – with blessings X O Martin”