Twice Captured

A Conversation with Max McLean

Max McLean was born in Panama City, Panama, and came to America via New York Harbor at age four. During his senior year at the University of Texas, he enrolled in drama classes to overcome fear of being in front of people and discovered he had a talent for acting. “The bug bit,” he says. “And it bit hard.” He did post-graduate work at a drama school in London and went on to present the Bible in live presentations and on radio and TV.

In 1992, he founded the Fellowship for Performing Arts (FPA), a New York City-based nonprofit that produces theatrical works from a Christian worldview perspective in a way that is imaginative and engaging to diverse audiences. FPA productions have included The Screwtape Letters, Martin Luther on Trial, Genesis, Paradise Lost, and C.  S. Lewis Onstage: The Most Reluctant Convert.

In 2021, FPA made the leap into film with The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.  S. Lewis (CSLewisMovie.com), in which McLean stars as Lewis narrating his faith journey from boyhood to his conversion at age thirty-two. It has been called both “intimate” and “the most intelligent film you’ll see in 2022.”

Tell me about your faith journey.

I ran away from Jesus at first, but he really captured my attention in my mid-twenties. I read John’s Gospel in one sitting, and I met him there. He came off the pages, and I really had my born-again experience. I was regenerated. I knew that the gospel was true, and I never really looked back. I’ve had lean times, but never really questioned the veracity of the gospel.

You also went to seminary?

I did attend seminary a little bit. While I was there, some of the faculty found out I had a theater background, and they encouraged me to use it in ministry. And so I decided to apply the skills and techniques I’d developed in the theater to presenting the Bible. That was a really extraordinary event because—I think Lewis points this out in Mere Christianity and other places—explanations of the gospel are not the gospel. The gospel is the story of Christ. It’s the events itself, and the gospel story is the closest thing we get to that. And so, when you add a theatrical element to it, you get pretty close to it. It really becomes a reenactment in a way that is hard to get any other way.

I also took an oral interpretation class, and I really fell in love with language and realized what it could do. And that’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with Lewis—because his use of language is so extraordinary.

Theater is not a profession known for its hospitableness to professing Christianity, but you seem to have seamlessly integrated life as a committed Christian with a calling in professional theatrical arts.

Ultimately, I had to create my own work. But I was trained, so I knew how to do it. And I was led, and doors opened, and that’s been very fulfilling.

I think for a Christian, if you’re really serious about your faith, you’re going to want to integrate it with your work. And if you find that there’s a conflict there, the Holy Spirit is going to lead you in how to figure that out. But one of the things that you want to avoid is negotiating your faith away in favor of your work. Your faith and your work should integrate in some way. It’s not easy. A lot of times, work is neutral, right? But in other times, it is contributing to things that are not neutral, especially when you’re dealing with words and story. If the stories you tell are not worthy of the work that you want to do, that you’re called to do, then you just have decisions to make.

You have become a vessel for communicating C.  S. Lewis, half a century after his death. It’s a profound gift you have brought to the world.

Thank you. I decided long ago, I want to learn from this man because he captures my imagination. So therefore, I want to invest and use my skills and techniques to really understand, to dig. That’s the hard part. When you take a play, let’s say Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce, or even The Most Reluctant Convert, which is based on his memoirs, you do the heavy lifting in order that someone else doesn’t have to do that work.

One of the greatest compliments that can happen for my work is when somebody will see it and say, “I’ve got to read more Lewis. I’ve got to get that book. I wasn’t prepared for this kind of impact. I need to know more.” And the work that I do, hopefully, leads to that, at least in some people.

You choose challenging projects. Well, anything regarding Lewis would be challenging.

Yes, it would be. So often in story-telling, they want to get to the action, and with Lewis, you really have to settle in on the quality of his prose and how he develops a thought, an idea, and just enjoy it. He says somewhere that his temptation was to asperity, a harshness of tone. He says he thinks it came because he loved using the English language forcefully. And I really appreciate that. Because he had those gifts. He was a vigorous debunker. He had the same rhetorical gifts as somebody like Christopher Hitchens. He could have been that, but God took those same rhetorical gifts and used them in a way of advancing the kingdom. He understood himself. He knew he was a proud man. And so he humbled himself.

I’ve noticed that when some people interview you, it’s like they’re interviewing Lewis through you.

[Chuckling] Well, you’re a product of the thoughts you think, the books you read, and the people you talk with. The reason I study him is because he just enlightens so much of my understanding of the Christian faith. And he’ll do that for others as well. So in a certain sense, to make Christ known, Lewis has been my vehicle for doing that.

How have some of your projects changed you?

I’m a different person. I’m so much more self-aware of my relationship with the Lord and where I fall short. Reading things like The Screwtape Letters, you’re really dealing with spiritual warfare and how it works in the smallest things. If you remember the story in The Screwtape Letters, from the first letter about the man in the British Museum—he’s reading something that’s just really grabbed him, and Screwtape sees twenty years’ work about ready to go out the window. And he turns around and says, “Isn’t it just about time for lunch?”

Distraction.

Yes, just distract, get him out of that moment. And it worked. Screwtape finishes that scene with telling Wormwood, “It’s funny how these humans picture us as putting things into their minds. Our best work is done by keeping things out.”

Further Up and Further In, the story of Lewis’s later years, is your latest C.  S. Lewis Onstage production.

Yes, I’m excited about that show. That’s such a good show. We developed it in the last year or so and did a workshop in Houston and then previewed it in Phoenix. The response was just overwhelming. It’s a mature Lewis. The premise of it, of course, is that when Lewis was converted in 1931, it wasn’t obvious he would become the most influential Christian of the twentieth century. How did that happen? What was unique about Lewis? What was God saying to him? Why did the BBC give him this platform to speak? It was interesting how listening to Hitler contributed to his creation of Screwtape. It’s a great story to tell.

—For up-to-date information about FPA productions, visit www.FPATheatre.com.