“We don't have wings. In other theaters, they have them, we don't. When you're offstage you're seen by everyone,” says Rick Warfield, a business suit-wearing Realtor for Prudential by day and a whiskered, t-shirt-wearing techie for the St. Mark's Players by night. Warfield is pointing out one of the complexities of doing theater inside a looming, 139-year-old Episcopal church. “The actors have to work on not calling attention to themselves. It's difficult.”

As he rifles through some church pamphlets trying to ferret out a book on St. Mark’s architecture, Warfield grumbles about the drawbacks of “the round,” the area in the middle of the church nave that, once chairs are cleared, acts as the Players’ stage. The 54-year-old sounds like he's complaining, but there's a smile playing on his jocular face, a glow of pride shining through the aggravation.

The Building
The book Warfield unearths describes St. Mark’s clerestory windows – the windows a newcomer will typically linger under, trying to interpret the esoteric iconography as the portals throw colored light. The clerestories have names like "Angel's Choir," and they depict everything from Madonna and child to King David playing his harp. Along the east wall is St. Mark watching over the parish.

With its Romanesque arches and high ceilings, St. Mark’s is primarily about worship. That's why for the last 25 years its all-volunteer community theater group has been working around God's schedule. Following a Saturday night rehearsal, for instance, they do what perhaps no other production in the city – or possibly country – does: They strike the set. Piece by piece, the bulk of it is skillfully crammed into a dark corner. After Sunday services are completed, the whole thing is reassembled.

It's hard work, and the occasional mid-week baptism or funeral can mean doing it all over again.

But on a Sunday night the group gathered at the church seems undaunted by the threat of unscheduled ceremonies.

They're too busy. Jerry Dale, president of the Players’ board, is getting his hands dirty, elevating himself on a high tech looking crane in order to attach a strobe light. Other crew members take notes or work out set intricacies in low voices; a few actors test the weight of the weapons they're going to use in the big battle scene. A dozen or so kids giggle and converse in excited twitters.

The rehearsal for C.S. Lewis's “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” six days before opening night, looks a bit chaotic, like a bunch of people at a party, each cluster of interaction focused on something different.

The Players
Director Joe Angel Bab, dressed in a sweater and slacks the color of green tea, sits with his legs crossed and calmly surveys the various forces at work. Like a man who just climbed a mountain, he seems immersed in a brief, contemplative moment of rapt solitude.

It's time to do the scene, so it's time for Bab to give a few sharp claps and then, like so many directors before him, to pitch a small fit as he delivers the “let's get it together, people” speech. Except he doesn't. He doesn't need to. Bab merely looks up and enunciates a little: “Let's get ready,” he says, and the room goes quiet.

As though cued by an invisible symphony, everyone, even those in the twittering kid group, takes up his or her spot in the careful ballet of stabbing that will amount to the battle scene. Plunging swords. Bodies falling. It comes off without a hitch. “Good job,” Bab says.

As the actors move on to the next scene, Dale sits down in a brightly-lit dining hall, watched over by a towering mural someone – no one that night can remember who – painted in the ‘70s, to talk about how he got involved with the Players. He dabbled in theater during college. After moving to DC, he found himself one evening watching the St. Mark’s production of “Pippin.” He was impressed, so he joined up. Before long Dale was stage managing “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” for the Players. “That's my talent,” he confesses, “not the creative part, but managing people.”

John Erath, who describes himself as being, professionally, a mid-level government bureaucrat, isn't the least bit interested in managing people. He's there to play Aslan, a divine and central figure in Lewis's fantasy world, and to have fun. The lanky father of two (son Jack and daughter Kate are also in the play) grew up in the theater. “I thought I would introduce [my] children to something I had enjoyed,” he says. “They’re having a good time.”

Thirteen-year-old Benjamin Schiffbauer, who plays Peter, explains that he's also having fun, albeit a little more seriously. With an older brother studying playwriting at Columbia and a sister who's a ballerina, he's set his sights on entering the arts as well – as a professional actor. So much so that in order to give more time to his career, he's currently homeschooling. “I like it,” he says. “I like being able to act and continue seventh grade at the same time.”

It's good that Schiffbauer won't have to get up early for school tomorrow; tonight's rehearsal will meander into late evening.

Opening Night
The lanterns of the church nave are dark, the liturgy absent, but religion, at least in terms of its incalculable meaning and rich subtext, is present, and not just because Lewis willed it so. Opening night, after all, is a rite.

The rows are full. Families lounge on one another, latecomers wrestle with fall jackets and scarves, old friends skirt around the stage to exchange greetings and conversation. When the lights die, so do the informalities. Adults clear their throats, and kids sit bolt upright, waiting for the action.

A few moments later, the first actors journey on stage, Schiffbauer among them. When he speaks his first lines, his microphone screams feedback. He doesn't giggle or get flustered. The play goes on.

At intermission no audience members slip away, despite the fact that it's a storyline most are already intimately familiar with (considering the oft read book and the blockbuster movie). But the events of the play flow with a conscientious poetry – with the wise and artful realization that it is a retelling and not a telling. It doesn't drag on trying to create suspense where there no longer is any, but reaffirms the spectators memories of the text.

When the play starts up again, it's haunted by the faint smell of the apple pie served during intermission. People wipe crumbs from their mouths as the play’s events and words pick up, edging toward the climax. In the end, as the actors join hands and take a bow, the audience seems thoroughly inspired by what's been done.

After 17 years of being involved with the community theater group, Warfield has seen the Players do a lot, not just with the often tricky space, but with limited funding as well. Members are constantly on the lookout for props and set. One day he got a call from an excited fellow player: “There are white plastic flowers on the corner of 14th & A!” said the voice on the other end of the phone. Warfield got there as soon as he could and pulled the decorations from the garbage. “Those flowers went into the set design for Seussical,” he remembers.

St. Mark’s church is located at 118 Third St. SE. For more information about St. Mark’s Players, call 202-546-9670 or visit www.stmarksplayers.org.