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Today we chat with Max McLean, the founder of Fellowship for Performing Arts, a group that has been instrumental in adapting the writings of C.S. Lewis for the stage and screen.
In this episode, you’ll discover how Max and his team are using drama to communicate Christian truths to diverse audiences through productions such as The Screwtape Letters, The Most Reluctant Convert, and more!
Want to experience these performances? Fellowship for Performing Arts is currently touring with Max McLean’s one-man C.S. Lewis show, Further Up, Further In and their production of The Screwtape Letters. To find a show near you or to learn more about their film, The Most Reluctant Convert, visit https://fpatheatre.com/
Episode Transcription
Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.
Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again, and welcome to another edition of Veritas Vox. Another episode, I should say, the voice of classical Christian education. Today, we have with us Max McLean, from Fellowship of the Performing Arts. Max, welcome.
Max McLean:
Thank you. Good to see you again, Marlin.
Marlin Detweiler:
I have known Max for—I believe it's fair to say—decades, but we've not crossed paths much. And I'm really excited to learn a little bit more about what you're up to. Now, before we jump into that, Max, tell us a little bit about your personal background, your family, your education, and what has led you into the acting world.
Max McLean:
Sure. I was born in in Panama. Panamanian mother, single parent. She met an American GI and brought me to New York. And when I was four years old, first thing I had to do was master the English language. Been working on it ever since, and Dad, retired from the military, spent his whole career military.
And so I went to ten different schools between first grade and 12th grade. Which was really challenging. It sort of made me have to perform, I suppose, you know, to make a mark. You know, you're going to move on rather quickly. Went to university in Austin, Texas.
And, while there, I started acting primarily to get over my fear of public speaking. And so the acting bug bit. Went to drama school in London. Began a professional career in New York and, a couple of years later, I just was really convicted to really pursue theater and acting as a way of glorifying the Lord.
Marlin Detweiler:
So you, my understanding is you have two children. Where did you meet?
Max McLean:
She was instrumental in my Christian conversion. I met her in Germany because that was right after University of Texas and before drama school. And we have two daughters, older, obviously, out of the house. One lives in, in new Jersey. One lives, in LA.
Marlin Detweiler:
Interesting. And you've recently moved to Los Angeles from New York?
Max McLean:
That's right, that's right. Yeah. And I have four grandkids. Wow. 12. 14. 12. 12 and ten.
Marlin Detweiler:
At the moment.
Max McLean:
Yeah. At the moment. Right.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's wonderful. Well, in ‘92, you started something called Fellowship for the Performing Arts. I suspect, from what you just said, that that plays heavily into your desire to glorify God with your acting. How did that all come about?
Max McLean:
Well, it did come about because of wanting to integrate my faith with my work. I was seeing great theater in LA, I mean, in New York and in London. And, I was wondering why this magnificent vehicle for storytelling was not really used very effectively within the Christian community. And I felt called to do something about that.
So I thought, why not use the skills and techniques I had developed in the theater and apply it to the Bible. So I started doing solo presentations of Mark's gospel, Acts, Genesis, other books, and that, you know, that put me on the road quite regularly. I was on the road 150 days a year. Mostly churches, some colleges.
But it was doing a college show at Duke University in 1991 that, the director of drama at the university was in the audience. And, he wrote me a letter afterwards saying, “I came to your show kicking and screaming. I was looking forward to it with all the pleasure of dental surgery,” but then he said, “What I saw was extraordinary, is the greatest piece of, it made me understand I was doing Mark's gospel, made me understand why the Gospels have so much power.”
And, you know, he didn't realize most people don't realize it… that made me realize that, you know, there was a lot of potential to really make a difference. So I formed a fellowship for performing arts, primarily to increase my production values and give myself more opportunities to play in sort of cross-cultural settings.
Marlin Detweiler:
So you've got this professor of theater at Duke talking about how impressed he was when he really didn't want to be there.
Max McLean:
Yeah, yeah. And it's just the nature of theater. Theater is quite cellular, visceral. And so, you know, often times, Christianity is communicated, for better or for worse, intellectually, you know, and of course, Christianity is a belief system. You have certain things that you must accept to be objectively true.
And so, as our culture has moved much more postmodern with regard to, truth claims are are basically considered power plays. The idea of engaging people emotionally, viscerally cellularly which is the, that's the purview of theater and film. Yeah. That allows people to see things in a different way.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, it doesn't – God doesn't God speak to us through Scripture in many respects in story also. In other words, I think we've gotten away from that and I think your work and the whole aspect of theater brings us back to a means of communicating truth that we can't overlook.
Max McLean:
Well, there's no doubt that so much of the Scripture is narrative story-based. But, look, and if you listen to the stories themselves, I mean, you know, the great stories of the sacrifice of Isaac, Cain and Abel, Noah's flood, you know, the story of Jacob and story of Joseph and on and on and on story of Moses, etc.
Often times we depend on people to, quote unquote, explain it and not live in it, and allow the narrative to hit us at a very, deep, deep level. And of course, the great preachers know that both is important, that the explanation is meant to unlock the narrative, so that that's understood and, and quite frankly, that's what theater is intended to do as well is, is to unlock the deeper truths that are there that maybe beyond the purview of words.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, so you've come out so now it's 1991 here at Duke. You have you get this letter. But in 92, Fellowship with Performing Arts was born. What happened in that time frame? How did that germinate?
Max McLean:
It was something that I'd already been, you know, considering. And that just was the instrumental cause to move it forward. And so, you know, as you know, starting a nonprofit organization is basically legal work. So, you know, you have to get your ducks in a row, make all the applications. But that immediately allowed you to tell your story and to generate support. And so I kind of went from, you know, trying to make a living to trying to make a difference.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well how would you describe the the mission of Fellowship of the Performing Arts? And how does it operate?
Max McLean:
Yeah, yeah. Well, the mission is to tell stories from a Christian worldview meant to engage a diverse audience. Diversity. That name has kind of been co-opted recently in the last, you know, since then, to be limited to racial and gender diversity. But what I was referencing was intellectual and religious diversity. In other words, how does the Christian story compete in the marketplace of ideas?
And so the idea is not to do our presentations in churches. So, you know, we've done a couple in churches, but, but rarely do we do. We do have the performing arts centers. We do in venues that gets promoted in sort of mainstream media. And this, of course, it all began before social media, which kind of changed everything, where, you know, you were kind of dependent on newspapers and radio and television and all that.
But it was a it was good because, you know, we had a platform to do something like, you know, get an example in New York City, we occupied the same venue, in New York, which had previously shown The Vagina monologues, a very popular show that tours constantly. And, you know, we went into that venue to do something different.
That's, Yeah. And, you know, and tens of thousands of people saw this show, you know, right in the heart of the theater district where, you know, we made a difference. Yeah. What could have been used for one purpose was used for another. So that was the kind of thing that we were attempting to do.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, well, it's it's grown dramatically. And one of the things that has been a real step forward was to take, well, maybe, actually, before I go there, I want to ask a question. So, a lot of your work has focused on the work of C.S. Lewis. How did you develop a love for him? How did that fit into the mission?
Max McLean:
Yeah. You know, I'm an adult convert to Christianity. I converted when I was 23 years old, and after reading the New Testament, some of the books I started reading was Lewis. And he really captured my imagination, particularly with The Screwtape Letters. But I was really busy doing mostly interpretations of the Bible.
Actually, you know, word for word interpretations, humor, Mark, etc.. Genesis. And, a theater professor at Drew University in New Jersey, saw some of our Bible works and said, “You know, I really like your work, and I think you – meaning Max McClain – would make a really good Screwtape.” And I didn't know if that was a compliment or not, but…
Marlin Detweiler:
It could be in both ways, you know?
Max McLean:
Yeah, it could be. So I said, “Well, you know, I was intrigued because the book had quite an impact on me. You know, it really made me understand spiritual warfare in a way that I wouldn't have understood it before.” And, so I said, “Well, if we can get the rights, let's have a go.” So we did get the rights.
And that started us on a journey with C.S. Lewis, because I really did think it was going to be a one off. You know, I do Screwtape and then go back to do something else. But what I found is when you're going to do something for, you know, for the page or the stage, you really have to know it super well.
You have to get underneath it in order to articulate it in a way that makes sense to a theater public. Understand? Yeah. So you got to really know it. And what I found in the process of getting to know it, I got to know Lewis, and I found you just never got to the bottom of it.
And so I said, well, you know, I'm not done with Lewis, so we. We did the great divorce. Then we did the most reluctant convert. then we've done Shadowlands, which is a story about what he enjoyed, David. And then we did, the most recent piece we're doing, we're touring now called Further Up Further in.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wow. Well I've seen the movie that you did, but I have not seen any live shows, and I need to fix that. If you come to a city near me, I need to know that and get over to see it. Absolutely amazing to me. And I don't know how this played in, I would at least give it a vote to providence. But I've seen how well you depict Lewis physically.
Max McLean:
Yeah, I do, you know, I mean, I got probably a little darker complexion than him, but other than that I think my face is – we've got both have round faces and, I think our voice temper is very similar. And of course, I've just spent so much time reading him. I really understand his syntax.
I really understand how he thinks. And one of the things I love, when I do, you know, most of my shows of Lewis and the film, you know, I love being that smart for 90 minutes.
Marlin Detweiler:
His brilliance is hard to overestimate, and his relevance to the market that you're seeking to serve the community that is diverse, and is happy to be challenged in it's thinking, really, Lewis is the perfect fit there, isn't it?
Max McLean:
Yeah. Well, you know, he read everything from the Greeks to the moderns. You know, he had a steel trap mind that could remember everything he read. And he had this unique ability to translate all of that into magnificent prose and speech and did all of that under the headship of Jesus Christ.
And so you have one of the most formidable intellects, in submission to the word of God, into submission to the person of Christ. And, given his literary background, you know, the kinds of imaginative, data that he generates is overwhelming. And I, as I said, you never get to the bottom of it. He's very funny. But he, you know, as he says, the humor is the bloom of the argument. You know, it's just a twist of a phrase that it's funny and then yet you understand.
He didn't like jokes. He didn't tell jokes. He didn't like, you know, being cynical or, you know, the sort of thing that a lot of people like to do in terms of putting people down. He never did that. His humor was always illuminating.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, that's that's well put. I hadn't thought about it that way. The contemporaries that he lived with, of Tolkien and Sayers and numerous others in England and Oxford, are a group of people that are, you know, of course, everybody's heard of the Inklings and that group, but there was so much intellectual challenge and so much, and he is obviously a leader among them, but their ability to turn a phrase and to write effectively and to communicate effectively is really, a model for people seeking to recover a classical Christian education.
And so that's been the perspective from which we've come at Veritas. But it's fun to hear you talk about, you never get to the bottom of them. And how he was funny in a way that is not putting people down or operating as a, you know, stand up comedian in a very clever way. What other things would you note that drew you to him that have really made – I, as best I can tell – the primary niche that you followed with Fellowship of the Performing Arts or for us.
Max McLean:
Yeah. You know, he said that he loved to use the English language forcibly. His use of language, the current show that we have Further Out Further Iin is a trajectory of Lewis's life after his conversion between his conversion and the publication of Narnia and that period was the most productive period of his life.
And, anyway, I just kind of. I'm sorry. I just lost my train of thought where I was going to probably come back to me, in a short. Oh, I know what it was. Anyway, this new play that I'm doing, it was reviewed in a, you know, arts paper in Washington, DC when we were there. And the writer, the review really seemed to grasp it in a way that I really appreciated.
He said, “The play begins philosophical because Lewis was a tremendous philosopher in the service of Christ. Then the play got into some biographical things in terms of how the BBC, discovered him in terms of doing their Christianity and the broadcast talks and, how Hitler influenced him writing The Screwtape Letters and just to sort of rise to fame and the fact that, you know, people wrote him so many letters that, he felt obligated to respond to each one.
And then the play moves into a very, spiritual, theological apologetics place where we go through an actual conversation of a conversion experience inspired by the Sheldon Bannock and experience. And then the final piece of it, he writes, is that the play becomes rather Pentecostal, and the point being is that Lewis at the end of the play and in his writings, he's trying to describe heaven, he's trying to describe what the goal he calls it, that, the longing that we have, he calls it the the the music we were born remembering. He calls it joy, which must be distinguished very sharply from happiness or pleasure. Except anyone have ever experienced joy will want it again. He doesn't think earthly pleasures were meant to satisfy it, only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. I made it my duty to press on to that other country, and if I could help others do the same.”
So the last part, it's like, you know, the whole Pentecost event was meaningful language that needed to be interpreted, meaningful, a language that people didn't have the insight to understand until somebody expressed it. And Lewis is trying to be that mediator for us to give some kind of imaginative understanding of what the hope of glory is.No, eye has seen, no ear has heard. And yet he really is trying to give us a vision of it so that we desire it because one of our biggest problems as Christians is, you know, he says very, forthrightly, he says it's safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God because only the pure in heart walk to the idea being is, you know, we don't have the vision of what it's like to see God. And so we need help. And Lewis is a great way to help us get there.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's. Wow. That's incredible. The phrase further up and further in is one that is so hard to nail down, yet says so much. I've used it so often, and if somebody asked me to define it, I'd probably be hard-pressed to do it. Yeah, it's, you know what it means.
Max McLean:
Yeah. Well, it's sort of that reality is further up and further and beyond what you know, and, we're being taught and this this goes right to the point of what you do at Veritas. We're being taught by our public schools, by our whole educational system, by our media, that the goal of life is here and now.
Everything that we have to put our hope into in the now and not look for pie in the sky hereafter. And yet they always forget to tell you that even if all that's true, if all the happiness that can be found resides here, now, we're all going to lose it by that. Yeah.
Including the last generation of all. And then the whole story is going to be nothing. Not even a story, is it? All history will be, as Lewis put it, marvelous place. All history would have, will have been an accidental flicker in an ocean of dead time, which preceded following.
Marlin Detweiler:
Wow.
Max McLean:
And there's going to be no one to remember or as Lewis says in the play, or there's something else further up further in. Yeah. So it's in the context of what we're being peddled on a day to day basis.
Marlin Detweiler:
Have the Lewis shows all been one-man shows?
Max McLean:
Well, Screwtape was, the Great Divorce was, Shadowlands was 12. Further Up was one, Monologue to Convert was one. Yeah. So this one is. Yeah.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. It seems to me that, it is. Yeah, it's drama in the form of the spoken word more than anything else.
Max McLean:
Well, it's this piece. The production values are extraordinary. Okay. You know, we've got a lot of multimedia. We've got tremendous projection designs and sound design. So it is a multimedia experience.
Marlin Detweiler:
Okay. Now, you turned the most reluctant convert. Sorry. Which was a takeoff on Surprised by Joy. You turn that into a movie? Yeah. You've seen the movie. Wonderfully done. Thank you. The elder, C.S. Lewis. what was it that caused you to say? I want to do more than stage. I want to see this turned into a movie.
How did that come about? Help us understand those steps.
Max McLean:
Well, I think it's a natural progression of, theater to film. I think theater is a bit niche and film is a little bit more mainstream and has much more ability to reach a lot of people. People understand film much more than they understand theater theaters, relatively expensive, where film is, you know, almost available through streaming services, etc., at very reasonable rates.
So, like, you know, in a given year in our tours, we'll probably reach somewhere between 60 and 75,000 people. And that's touring a lot. Right. And it's only, you know, it doesn't, there's no, back end, you know, it has to be produced. Every show is completely new and different.
And, whereas, you know, when we open Most Reluctant Convert in cinemas, we had more people in one night than we have in a given year. We had many more people.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah.
Max McLean:
And then over the course of and then and also it's an evergreen product that it's still selling really well today. This is it. Open November 2021. It's what August 2024? You know, it's still being seen. I think there's over 4,000 reviews of it on Amazon Prime. Wow. You know, so, it just has it's made its mark.
And because it's attempting to be, accurate, you know, there's a lot of trust factor in it that you're getting a very definitive picture of C.S. Lewis.
Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, yeah. It was funny when I interviewed Ben Carson on this, we were talking about the movie of his life, and he chose the production company based on their willingness to let him have creative control because he didn't want his life to be depicted in ways that simply weren't him. He said if I hadn't done that, I would have ended up having an affair with one of the nurses in the operating room, according to the producers. Yeah. Anyone of Cornell, when you do that and the idea of doing, you know, it's one of the things we like about historic fiction when you try to do it, you do it as accurately as you can. Because the story in and of itself is what makes it worthwhile.
Yeah. So what are you up to now?
Max McLean:
Well, I've got this tour, Further Up, Further And.
Marlin Detweiler:
Further And,
Max McLean:
And as you and I are speaking today, I fly to San Jose for two shows, and then, then Salt Lake City and then Portland, Oregon. We're going to do the show at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in September, Brown University in October. So we're excited about those. And then in September, we're reviving our production of The Screwtape Letters, which is going to have a very, extensive tour in LA, Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Tulsa, various other places.
I think it's going to be at Notre Dame University. So, we've got a pretty active fall coming up, summer and fall. We're in the midst of finishing the script for our second film, which is tentatively titled The Road to Narnia, which is about this middle period of Lewis's life. And, we want to explore how Narnia was, you know, what were some of the influences, but we're also going to kind of peel back and kind of look under the rug, a little bit of what was going on in Lewis's personal life during that period where he was living with an older woman called his mother, named Mrs. Moore, who's a very challenging personality. In addition to that, he was also living with his brother Warnie, who had a difficult relationship with the bottle. And it was incredible to me, the emotional experiences that he went through in his private home.
That's really well documented in his biographies and biographies about him. But it's not really well known to the public. And yet, in spite of that, he was so incredibly productive and he had this, I'm paraphrasing here, but there's an actual quote that, you know, we think of interruptions in our life as, you know, we get really bothered by them.
But he says, you know, interruptions are the life God sends us day by day. Yeah. And, you know, and how you move forward through them. In that period of time with all these quote-unquote interruptions, he wrote 25 books, taught thousands of students, wrote thousands of letters. You know, it was because he was obedient.
He really was obedient. And he recognized that, you know, that this world is a training ground, and we need to think of it in that way as opposed to, trying to, you know, say, how do we get as comfortable as we can? Which, of course, is kind of what the American way is.
Marlin Detweiler:
Lacking in as much life as we can.
Max McLean:
yeah. And so I do think there's a really powerful story that we're trying to capture on film, and I think we're doing a really good job.
Marlin Detweiler:
That's wonderful. I really look forward to seeing that. I want to encourage our viewers and listeners to see the first movie and to look for shows coming near them, because I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible. It is so timely because what it's done is it's addressed the 20th century and the mediums that are developed in it and put them into now the 21st century, of course, in ways that communicate the gospel to the modern era.
Max McLean:
Thank you. Great work. I really appreciate that, Marlin, and I really appreciate you reaching out.
Marlin Detweiler:
Well thank you. It has been so good to have you here, folks. Thank you for joining us again on another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. We hope to see you next time.
