Catholic actress explores death penalty, grief in morality plays

Published: 2004-12-03

LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- Television actress Marion Scherer hopes that her one-woman play, "A Prison of the Mind," which examines capital punishment, will get people thinking and talking about the issue. Scherer, who spent two years writing the play, has spent the last year performing it at churches and groups throughout California. She performs the entire cast of 15 characters, switching voices and changing body movements, to impersonate prisoners, chaplains, lawyers, victims' family members and relatives of the incarcerated. Her only prop is a realistic-looking electric chair complete with restraining straps that she assembles herself before each performance. "I want people to say, 'It made me start thinking,'" said Scherer, who was encouraged to write a play about the death penalty by a former Catholic priest who was chaplain at California Youth Authority, which operates youth correctional facilities throughout the state. The actress who co-starred in several made-for-TV movies and appeared in recurring roles on daytime soap operas, including "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless," had already written a play for St. John's Hospital in Los Angeles exploring end-of-life issues that allowed audience members to express their thoughts about death and loss.

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