Open Window Theatre’s ‘Frassati’ explores life of saint who loved outdoors, politics, the poor

Pier Giorgio Frassati was an avid mountaineer, engineering student and political activist in Turin, Italy. He was also deeply devoted to the poor, his family and the Eucharist. When he died of polio in 1925 at age 24, droves of mourners lined the streets outside his funeral to pay respects. According to biographies, the Frassatis — an influential Italian family — were shocked to know their son had been so close to orphans, the sick and people in poverty. The poor were equally surprised to find that their friend was from such a prominent family.

Canonized in 1990, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati is the subject of a play opening Oct. 1 at Open Window Theatre in Inver Grove Heights. Written and directed by Jeremy Stanbary and starring Jeromy Darling, the play is the first professional theater production that aims to capture the life of this modern saint, Stanbary said.

Stanbary, who founded Open Window Theatre 10 years ago with his wife, Sarah Stanbary, and currently serves as the theater’s executive artistic director, said St. Pier Giorgio’s life resonates with the world today. As St. Pier Giorgio entered adulthood, Italy was roiled by post-war political upheaval, a growing class divide and waves of anticlericalism.

St. Pier Giorgio’s father directed the newspaper La Stampa, was an Italian senator and a German ambassador. His mother was a painter. Neither was religiously devout. St. Pier Giorgio was outspoken — like his father, he was openly anti-Fascist and attended anti-Communist demonstrations, but he was even more zealous for his Catholic faith.

He attended daily Mass, frequently prayed in eucharistic adoration, was active in Catholic youth organizations and faith-based political movements, and became a lay Dominican. Even his studies in mining engineering were a ministry — St. Pier Giorgio said he hoped to “serve Christ better among the miners,” who had squalid working conditions, Stanbary said.

“The beauty of his sanctity and his ordinariness as well was just profound,” Stanbary said. “We can look to Pier Giorgio to see how we live the Gospel to its fullness in the ordinary, difficult, mundane things of everyday lives.”

When St. John Paul II canonized him, he noted that his own life had been inspired by St. Pier Giorgio, and called him the “Man of the Eight Beatitudes.” Pope Francis highlighted him as a model for young people in “Christus Vivit,” his 2019 document on young people, and he quoted St. John Paul: St. Pier Giorgio “was a young man filled with a joy that swept everything along with it, a joy that also overcame many difficulties in his life.” He is the inspiration for and patron of the worldwide Frassati groups, including the Frassati Society of Minnesota, which unite faith and fellowship, especially through outdoor excursions.

The idea to create a play about St. Pier Giorgio took root in Stanbary’s mind years ago, when he was performing other one-man dramas about saints that he had written: “Lolek,” about St. John Paul II, and “Alessandro,” about the conversion of the man who attempted to rape St. Maria Goretti before murdering her in 1902. “I’ve always felt that someday I would do a deeper dive into his life and write a play about him,” he said of St. Pier Giorgio.

When he met Darling — an actor and musician who also played a part in Stanbary’s expansion of “Lolek” that ran at Open Window last year and “Catholic Young Adults: The Musical,” which ran in St. Paul in the fall of 2019 — Stanbary knew he had the right look and talent to carry the role.

Darling, a recent Catholic convert, said that he has been inspired by the saint, “who had lived such a full life before he died at 24.”

“This is such a tremendous way to experience the life of a saint in their own words, as best as we can portray them,” he said. “To come meet a saint like this, there’s just nothing like it.”

Unlike developing a fictional character, there’s no “creative leeway” with St. Pier Giorgio, he said. Instead, the challenge is trying to understand who he was and convey that.

“You’re trying to honor that person,” Darling said. “You’re just trying to gather as much information and put that into your body.”

The show, which runs through Nov. 1, is about 90 minutes long and includes four cast members. It is the only show in the theater’s current season that will include a virtual performance option. According to Open Window Theatre’s website, openwindowtheatre.org, the virtual show will premiere at the end of October, but the date is yet to be determined.

Stanbary said he hopes the audience takes away “some answer to where peace of soul is found.”

“The problems in the world are never going to go away. And the Christian response is not to distance ourselves from the problems of the world,” he said. “Pier Giorgio had found a tremendous peace of heart, peace of soul in life. … We dig into that in the play because the play is much more than a historical biographical drama. The play is more so a spiritual biographical drama, but still rooted in the history and events of his life.”