The true cost of the Rev. Jim Jones' paranoia is never far away in The People's Temple. The Guthrie Theater stage is packed with high shelves. On each one sits dozens and dozens of white boxes. Inside each are the personal effects of one of the more than 900 victims of the 1978 mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana, for which Jones is now remembered.
His ever-present specter, in fact, looms over The People's Temple, which is uneven but undeniably powerful. Based on the recollections of survivors and family members, the words of the victims and of Jones himself, it draws the audience into an alien world. That it never adequately explores the point at which a church dedicated to social justice became a radical cult, with a leader who would order the deaths of his followers, is its primary failing.
Many of the creators of The People's Temple also worked on The Laramie Project, and there are a number of parallels between them. Both deal with hard-to-fathom crimes; both are presented in the words of real people. And The People's Temple follows a roughly chronological path as it traces the rise of Jones as a Pentecostal-style faith healer and later the leader of his own church, first based in Northern California. Most of the show's heart comes from the actors playing the church members, who recount the amazing times they had with the congregation along with the darkness that enfolded them in later years.
The play's creators — led by director Leigh Fondakowski and writer Greg Pierotti — do an admirable job of bringing out the humanity of the victims, but the audience is never let inside the most important figure in the show: Jim Jones himself. We never really follow his inner path from man of God to architect of mass suicide. Some of this could be due to the show's length: It runs nearly three hours and repeats a lot of the same information, especially how wonderful the church's early days were, when its progressive, interracial makeup attracted many followers.
Yet The People's Temple always comes back to the people, and its dozen performers bring each of the more than 30 characters to full-dimensional life. That's important. While the show's first production at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California could connect to an audience for whom the events of Jonestown were arguably more immediate, productions in the rest of the country need to rely on the sections of the material that are universal: the quest for the spiritual, for a community, for a better life. This comes through in nearly all the characters as we learn why they joined with Jones and why — even when things went horribly wrong — they remained. We are reminded that many of these vibrant characters on stage will soon be reduced to memories, to a few stray items in a white cardboard box.
The People's Temple runs Jan. 7-Feb. 5 at the Guthrie Theater, 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis. Tickets: (612) 377-2224. Website: www.guthrietheater.org.