This Land

by Dan Barry

  Please God, help us with “this awful oil spill,” he said. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

  The men rose from their knees and returned to their pews, a couple of them rubbing the salty wet from their eyes.

  Passion Play in Rural Florida Endures Time’s Many Trials

  WAUCHULA, FLA.—APRIL 21, 2011

  With less than two hours until showtime, a man sits amid the backstage chaos and studies his image in a propped-up mirror. The eyes are grayish blue, the goatee trim, the long dark hair flecked with gray. Not there yet. He scoops another dab of makeup to continue the annual transformation of Mike Graham, now 58, into Jesus Christ, forever 33.

  An assistant hustles over with a sky-blue robe that an anxious Mr. Graham wriggles over his bare torso and summer shorts. “Too little on me,” he says apologetically, working his way out of it. Someone else asks him to assess a young girl’s angel costume. “I’d like her to be glittered,” he says, before asking whether the child has been warned how to behave around the camels.

  Then the man who plays Jesus for a living turns back to his imperfect reflection.

  For more than two decades, Mr. Graham, a preacher, has directed and assumed the lead role in a gritty Passion play, “The Story of Jesus,” that unfolds 10 nights a year in the modest Cattleman’s Arena, in rural Hardee County. Across its dirt-floor stage come chariots and sword fights, miracles and betrayals, exotic animals and a cast of hundreds.

  Over time, Mr. Graham’s play has survived many trials, some natural, some economic and some, he suspects, the work of the devil. In 2004, the production weathered both the competition of the Mel Gibson movie “The Passion of the Christ” and the wrath of a hurricane that nearly swept Wauchula away but spared the play’s many costumes and long-suffering donkey.

  Other challenges, he says, have included his divorce years ago, which alienated many followers; a decline in attendance, due in part to competition from the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando; and other, curiously timed setbacks—a car accident, a sudden illness—that nearly prevented him from picking up his cross.

  Finally, Mr. Graham knows the folly of trying to slow time, although he has tried. For one thing, he has enlisted a 27-year-old bridge inspector to play Jesus in certain taxing scenes.

  “He handles the Trial, the Ascension, the Resurrection,” Mr. Graham explains. “I do all the miracles, basically. The adult life of Jesus, the Last Supper, the garden of Gethsemane scene, and the Crucifixion.”

  Mr. Graham cuts his hair just once a year, and works out every morning in his home gym so that he is able to carry a heavy cross dozens of yards across the stage. Still, he has no desire to follow the great Josef Meier, who played Jesus in performances in South Dakota and in Lake Wales, just north of here, well into his 80s. A miracle in itself.

  The transformation

  For now, Mr. Graham must set aside these concerns, and focus. The first Passion play of the season is just 90 minutes away.

  PROPS, PAINT AND PETTING ZOO

  Under the late-afternoon sun, white cast members take turns getting spray-painted a color called Sebring brown, a shade that Mr. Graham thinks approaches a Middle Eastern skin tone. A man in a “Sprayin’ & Prayin’” T-shirt dilutes the chocolate muck in plastic buckets, while another man, with a praying-hands tattoo on his left leg, paints a succession of outstretched arms, splayed legs and wincing faces.

  This ritual is one of many that have evolved over the last quarter-century, ever since Mr. Graham, as a guitar-wielding youth pastor from southern Illinois, staged a crucifixion scene at a church banquet with a few teenagers and a couple of props. Some of those here tonight have never been in a Passion play; others have never known a spring without one. They are united now by glistening coats of Sebring brown.

  Alongside the arena, clusters of ticketholders gather for some nonalcoholic tailgating, while a Roman centurion trots past on a horse. In a tent nearby, volunteers set out various souvenirs for sale, including cardboard license plates that say: The Story of Jesus—I Was There!—Wauchula, Florida.

  A kind of off-limits petting zoo has sprung up beyond the arena’s back entrance, with pens containing ducks, sheep, horses, two oxen, a donkey and three camels, just arrived from Ocala. Their owner, Butch Rivers, 70, a former stunt rider who now uses a cane—“You pay for it,” he says of certain passions—is excited to see the play again.

  “The first time I saw this play it put chills on me,” Mr. Rivers says.

  An hour until showtime, and the Cattleman’s Arena awaits its first-century bustle. The dirt has been raked and sprayed with water, to keep the dust down. All soda cans and other remnants of the future have been removed. The still-life setting is as serene as the blue-dyed river dug into the dirt, stage right.

  But just a few yards away, in an exhibit hall serving as backstage, a large industrial fan stirs the nervous air. Actors hunt through a long rack of costumes that runs beneath a portrait gallery of beauty queens, the “Cattlemen’s Sweethearts” of the near and distant past. Children wolf down treats and Gatorade before assuming the roles of angels and demons. Girding thespians reach for their fake spears and swords.

  BEHIND THE SCENES

  Here is Joann Grantham, 56, volunteer prop master, who has done everything from scour discount stores for plastic fruit to retouch the throne of the child king. She has also helped to decide whether you’re a shop owner, an apostle or a member of the Sanhedrin. (Mr. Graham, by the way, is aware of the history of anti-Semitic Passion plays, and takes pains not to traffic in stereotypes.)

  In the past, Ms. Grantham has often played a “false witness” who spits on Jesus. But she chose to remain behind the scenes this year, after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer. When she goes to Walmart, she says, she wears a hat to cover her bald head, but tonight she feels at home, hatless and happy.

  Here, too, is Michelle Puma, 54, volunteer makeup artist, who has set up shop in the 4-H Club’s concession booth. Everything is in its place: the long-haired wigs set on Styrofoam heads; the various jars of fake blood; the blue boxes of Jesus beards; the Ace Hardware bucket containing various props, including a crown of thorns.

  One of Ms. Puma’s challenges is to make young people look older, which is the opposite of Mr. Graham’s task, as he peers critically into a mirror leaning against a menu board. “My hair’s just crazy tonight,” he says.

  Mr. Graham’s words seem rooted more in worry than vanity. Because he deeply believes that this play is how God wants him to spread the Word, his mind races with all the things that could distract from that message, and have: camels arriving a week late, a teenager texting on stage, a stray chicken flying out of Lazarus’s tomb. How about the time a couple of camera-carrying tourists wandered into the John the Baptist crowd scene?

  He is also thinking of a shortfall. The production costs about $250,000 a year, which includes the modest salaries for Mr. Graham and his wife, Diane, who will play Mary Magdalene tonight, and various rentals, from the arena to the camels ($1,000 a night).

  And, of course, here he is again, trying to be 33. But Mr. Graham has a plan: to replace “The Story of Jesus,” at least next year, with a new production, “The Story of Noah,” featuring himself in the lead role of the biblical patriarch, who was said to have lived several hundred years. Maybe someday, if he raises enough money, he will be able to build an outdoor theater of his own.

  Fifteen minutes to showtime. Mr. Graham, now in full Jesus attire, climbs on top of a table, near a sign promoting beef (“Real Food for Real People”), and uses a microphone to deliver some last-minute reminders.

  No cellphones. No gum. No glasses. No watches. And if you’re a teenage girl who is wondering, “Can I hang out with the Sanhedrin?”—the answer is no!

  Mr. Graham leads everyone in a short prayer and a rallying hymn, then releases his energized flock with:

  “Let’s go! Do it!”

  A HAPPY ENDING

  Showtime, and on a dirt stage
in a darkened arena, the Story unfolds again.

  An innkeeper, played by a Sebring-brown student of Harley-Davidson mechanics, leads a couple to shelter. The baby Jesus, played by an infant named Angelina, is raised triumphantly into the air, while four white-robed angels, teenage girls strapped into harnesses, glide by pulley across the ceiling.

  Hear the wails of mothers whose baby boys have been slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers. See the colorful scrum of early commerce. Breathe the dust kicked up by the scurry of sheep and the plodding of oxen. Marvel as Jesus raises a child from the dead, halts the stoning of an adulteress and, thanks to a concealed harness and a fog machine, walks on water.

  During the brief intermission, take in the orange-blossom air of the Florida night. Buy a “Story of Jesus” fan for $2. Enjoy some nachos, or a bowl of mini doughnuts slathered with whipped cream. Return, then, to brace for the bloody, violent passion. The scourging, the spitting, the echo of nails hammered into hands and feet. The death.

  But everyone in the aluminum bleachers knows: This is not how the play ends.

  Soon the resurrected Jesus returns to the stage in glory. His crown of gold glittering, his sword raised high, he races back and forth on a galloping steed, perfect in its whiteness. The applause and cheers of 1,400 ring through a rodeo arena in central Florida.

  When it is over, Mr. Graham, exhausted, 58, ready to do it again tomorrow, takes the microphone to thank the audience and ask for parting donations. And if anyone wants to be baptized, there are robes, towels and a manmade river dyed a deep blue.

  The Boy Who Became Judy Garland

  NEW YORK, N.Y.—NOVEMBER 13, 2011

  Down some dark stairs, past cases of empty beer bottles, in the brick warren beneath the Off Off Broadway cabaret called Don’t Tell Mama, a middle-aged man helps his middle-aged brother adjust the blue sequined top that complements his black sequined skirt. Fifteen minutes to showtime.

  “Grab it from here,” says Tommy Femia, 52, who is also wearing pantyhose, three-inch heels and a dark-brown wig that belts out Carnegie Hall, 1961. “There’s just the one button.”

  “No zipper?” asks his brother Bobby Femia, 58, who fumbles about Tommy’s back like a safecracker searching in vain for the combination. He is wearing a black golf shirt, black pants, white sneakers and a porkpie hat that grunts Philadelphia, 1976.

  No zipper, says Tommy, who returns to his metamorphosis. Something burning in the cabaret’s kitchen is sending smoke through the muggy basement, but Tommy is focused only on the small round mirror in his closet of a dressing room, next to a humming Frigidaire. He checks his eyeliner. Sprays his hair. Applies his red lipstick.

  Watching from the tight hallway, Bobby explains that his job is to make sure nothing goes wrong. His biggest responsibility, he says, is to open the door leading to the stage so that Tommy can make a grand and seamless entrance.

  “He’s a nice boy,” Tommy says from his dressing room.

  Ten minutes to showtime. These two brothers from Brooklyn—star and one-man entourage—walk up from the basement and slip into a dimly lighted room beside the packed nightclub. Tommy begins to pace, his high heels tapping out the Morse code for nervousness on the hardwood floor.

  “Watch,” Bobby whispers, as his brother begins to slip away. “There’s a transformation.” After some silence, Bobby calls out a heads-up—“It’s 8:27”—and receives a soft O.K. in return.

  Inside, dozens of people squeeze around the small tables gathered before the stage, many of them tourists and first-time visitors. But a pair of seats along the far wall are always reserved for two special guests, regulars.

  The dimming of lights quiets the chatter. Showtime.

  The side door swings open and is held in place by the unassuming man in a porkpie hat. His radiant brother sweeps past, giggling and waving to imaginary friends as the klieg lights turn plastic sequins into winking jewels. Tommy receives the applause and the microphone, and begins to sing.

  Hey look me over, lend me an ear

  Fresh out of clover, mortgaged up to here

  But don’t pass the plate, folks, don’t pass the cup

  I figure whenever you’re down and out

  The only way is up…

  Judy. It’s Judy Garland. Judy.

  The three Femia brothers grew up in the Dyker Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, on the second floor of a corner building owned by a first cousin of their father’s. They slept in a triple bunk bed: Bobby, the oldest, was the bottom; John, the youngest, was the middle; and Tommy was the top, always, as if determined to follow some Cole Porter credo.

  Theirs was a typical Italian-American household, they say, with relatives wandering in and out, and people talking over one another during endless meals. They regaled and argued and laughed and cried and laughed again. Ann, the loving mother who could level you with a few choice words, worked as a supervising clerk for the state’s Department of Insurance, while Cosmo, the dutiful father who could defuse any situation with a joke, ran his own bleach company. Together they raised these three boys.

  Bobby on the bottom covered his share of the bedroom walls with posters of his favorite professional wrestlers, especially Bruno Sammartino, whose Italian heritage added to his appeal. He also displayed a photo of the Three Stooges; he was a Curly man.

  After high school, Bobby ran messages on Wall Street, worked for a monument company in Queens (“You polish the tombstones, make sure everything is tidy for the funeral”) and, for nine years, helped a cousin with a truck make deliveries of ricotta, mozzarella, and other Italian foods. He married, then divorced. Now he lives in Bensonhurst with Halina Flis, a Polish immigrant who works as a home attendant.

  For the last 26 years, Bobby has been a security officer for the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor. He works 56 hours a week, wearing a blue uniform and a shield that dangles from a chain around his neck. Truckers entering and leaving the container terminal in Red Hook have to check in first with Bobby.

  “Nothing passes me,” he says.

  John in the middle, the baby, reserved his wall space for the Marx Brothers, although he also adored the Three Stooges; he was a Shemp man. He began developing an encyclopedic memory of comedy routines when he was very young, and before long he was performing dead-on imitations of Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby and Pat Cooper.

  By the time he was 13, John was living in Los Angeles and appearing in “Hello, Larry,” a short-lived television situation comedy with McLean Stevenson, and a few years later, he was being featured in “Square Pegs,” a one-season high school sitcom that starred, among others, Sarah Jessica Parker. He was Marshall Blechtman, the class clown, who talked fast and often.

  Cosmo Femia moved to California to be John’s guardian, a job that Tommy took over a few months later. Ann Femia, meanwhile, guarded her youngest son’s career with no-nonsense zeal, John says, making sure he would not be exploited by producers and higher-ups.

  After “Square Pegs,” John appeared once more on television, in a teen comedy that was broadcast as an “ABC Afterschool Special” in 1984. But as he grew older, he says, he came to be considered too ethnic—“too New York”—for most roles. So, weary of a career that had come at certain cost to his childhood, he moved back to Brooklyn in 1989, when he was 23.

  After a long layoff, though, John returned to show business a dozen years ago. Now 45, he lives in Manhattan with his girlfriend, Linda Maley, and works as an actor and a stand-up comedian. He also claims to be more amused than annoyed by a YouTube video that says the actor who played Marshall in “Square Pegs” died in 1989 of complications related to AIDS (the fate of another of the show’s stars, Merritt Butrick).

  “I never corrected it,” John says.

  And, finally, in that bunk bed: Tommy on top.

  DECLARING DEVOTION, AND MORE

  As a teenager in the Brooklyn of the mid-1970s, just before the age of “Saturday Night Fever,” Tommy would lie in his bunk and listen to the albums he had culled from t
he collection at a record store in Bensonhurst. Not the Beatles, not the Rolling Stones, but Streisand, Streisand, Streisand and, a little later, Garland—especially the classic two-disc live recording from 1961, “Judy at Carnegie Hall.”

  “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.” “Almost Like Being in Love.” “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” “Swanee.” “A Foggy Day.” “Over the Rainbow,” over and over and over, with Tommy singing along, belting it out. “I was 9, and I hated it,” his younger brother, John, recalls. “I’d scream at him to stop, which, of course, made him do it more.”

  If Bobby had his wrestlers and John his comedians, Tommy had his women: Glossy photographs of Monroe, Harlow and Crawford adorned his share of the bedroom’s wall space. He hated the posters of those hairy beasts of wrestling; give him—Garbo.

  In a way, Tommy was not only declaring his devotion to Barbra and Judy and the rest. He was also announcing his homosexuality to his old-school Italian family at a time, John says, “when homosexuality was not an option in an Italian home.”

  The oldest brother, Bobby, knew, because he occasionally gave Tommy a ride to one of the gay bars in Greenwich Village. But the others never knew—until they did. According to Tommy, his father had no problem with his sexuality, but his mother’s scorn was so unrelenting that he left home at 18 and moved in with a boyfriend in Hoboken.

  Before he left, though, his father asked to speak with him. “He told me that he loved me, and he gave me some money,” Tommy says. “He had never given me money before.”

  The hurt went both ways. “It was difficult; it was difficult,” Mrs. Femia recalls. “But I did some reading. I spoke to some professional people. And I came to understand it was God’s will. He was born that way.”