The Exor­cist and the eter­nal strug­gle between reli­gion and science

“The sto­ry is so utter­ly the­atri­cal” says John Pielmeier ​“I mean what’s more dra­mat­ic than a life-and-soul strug­gle that takes place in a child’s bed­room?” In 2008 William Peter Blat­ty gave play­wright John Pielmeier the rights to the stage pro­duc­tion of his 1971 nov­el ​‘The Exor­cist’. The show opened at the Gef­fen Play­house in Los Ange­les in 2012 to mixed reviews. After a major re-write, and secur­ing the efforts of cel­e­brat­ed direc­tor Sean Math­ias, The Exor­cist will make its west end debut in Lon­don this October.

The Exor­cist is con­sid­ered by many to be the great­est hor­ror film ever made, yet Fried­kin has said, ​“that’s not how I feel about it.” While it’s true that cer­tain ele­ments of the film are shock­ing, it is actu­al­ly a dra­ma punc­tu­at­ed by hor­ror, with the demon­ic pos­ses­sion of 12-year-old Regan McNeill (played in the film by Lin­da Blair) pro­vid­ing an arrest­ing con­trast to the qui­et pace of the narrative.

In 1973, exor­cism was an anath­e­ma in an increas­ing­ly sec­u­lar west­ern soci­ety. In 2017, despite an unlim­it­ed access to infor­ma­tion, the cri­sis of faith rings truer than ever for many. In March, the Catholic News Agency report­ed that, ​“there is an alarm­ing increase in demon­ic activ­i­ty.” Exor­cist for the Arch­dio­cese of Indi­anapo­lis, Father Vin­cent Lam­pert believes that while steps are being tak­en to increase the num­ber of exor­cists, demand is still out­pac­ing sup­ply. Accord­ing to Lam­pert and the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Exor­cists, ​“there is a great need for more exorcists.” 

One pri­vate exor­cist prac­ti­tion­er told The Econ­o­mist that busi­ness is thriv­ing in France ​“fol­low­ing the ter­ror­ist attacks in France late in 2015”, while soci­ol­o­gist Michael Cuneo, author of ​‘Amer­i­can Exor­cism’, believes that ​“exor­cism is more read­i­ly avail­able today in the Unit­ed States than per­haps ever before.” Else­where The Tele­graph has report­ed that ​“in the US, over the past 10 years, the num­ber of offi­cial priest exor­cists has more than quadru­pled from 12 to 50.”

Even as great strides are being made in sci­ence and med­i­cine, the camps of sci­ence and reli­gion remain dis­tant and unco­op­er­a­tive. The Guardian reports that in Poland, the Catholic church heav­i­ly influ­ences the state. With already one of the most restric­tive abor­tion laws in Europe, women and men protest­ed on the streets all over the coun­try about the pro­posed laws which seek to ban abor­tion in all cas­es. In Aus­tralia, Catholic ex-prime min­is­ter Tony Abbot is a lead­ing fig­ure for the cam­paign against same-sex mar­riage and in Turkey, a coun­try well-known for reli­gious neu­tral­i­ty and sec­u­lar­i­ty, ​“a bat­tle has been under­way between sec­u­lar and reli­gious Turks ever since Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan came to pow­er,” accord­ing to NPR.

As of this year, Turk­ish schools will stop teach­ing evo­lu­tion in school. In the US, as pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump con­tin­ues to favour poli­cies that sup­port Chris­t­ian beliefs, poten­tial­ly clos­ing the gap between church and state, the coun­try remains divid­ed, high­light­ed by the March for Sci­ence held in Wash­ing­ton DC and in major cities across the coun­try in May.

When it comes to the Chris and Regan’s sto­ry, Blatty’s alle­giances are obvi­ous as the uncar­ing, clin­i­cal doc­tors’ offices and the jack­ham­mer of the MRI machine pro­vide a stark con­trast with the gen­tle warmth and under­stand­ing of Father Kar­ras. Instead of embrac­ing unit­ed efforts in the face of mys­tery, The Exor­cist posits the fail­ure of sci­ence against the suc­cess of the church.

As the so-called ​“holy war” between Islam and Chris­tian­i­ty con­tin­ues to blight the streets, malls and con­cert venues of our biggest cities, The Exor­cist remains a potent cul­tur­al sym­bol. The pow­er of which, Pielmeier agrees, hinges on the film’s dichoto­mous nature, ​“the bat­tle-lines are crys­tal clear, the well-drawn bound­aries divide good and evil.” But, he adds, ​“with­in that strug­gle there are many nuances that cre­ate a com­plex­i­ty that I found intrigu­ing and very personal.”

Many of the story’s ele­ments have been trimmed for the stage adap­ta­tion, and Pielmeier says that this par­ing down allows him to ​“focus on aspects that the movie didn’t go into, includ­ing the child that Chris lost before Regan’s birth, Burke’s back­ground in Catholi­cism, Damien’s rela­tion­ship with his moth­er and Merrin’s phi­los­o­phy of hope.”

And while the con­tent of this pro­duc­tion is on track, what about the deliv­ery of this time­less tale? Math­ias and Pielmeier are keep­ing tight-lipped on the stage-craft and effects, reveal­ing only that audi­ences will find the west-end adap­ta­tion ​“not only ter­ri­fy­ing but thought-pro­vok­ing. And ter­ri­fy­ing. And dis­turb­ing. And terrifying.”

Bill Kenwright’s The Exor­cist opens on 20 Octo­ber at London’s Phoenix theatre.