Autobiographical play about clergy abuse coming to Academy of Music

NORTHAMPTON — Easthampton resident Jay Sefton will stage his one-person play "Unreconciled" at the Academy of Music on July 25, followed by a panel discussion about the work. The play centers on sexual abuse Sefton experienced as a child from a priest.

Sefton wrote the play after the Pennsylvania state legislature came close to passing a constitutional amendment in 2021 that would have created a two-year lookback window in the statute of limitations for adults who experienced child sexual abuse. When the amendment failed to pass, Sefton said he felt compelled to write. "I was filled with rage," he said.

He initially approached the project as a private exercise, unsure whether it would ever be performed. After workshopping the play at Chester Theatre Company and staging it in Philadelphia near where the abuse occurred, Sefton said he encountered repeated moments of hesitation. "It's rather hard to get people to come see a one-person show about clergy abuse, surprisingly," he said.

As performances continued, the nature of the work shifted. After each show, audience members began sharing their own experiences of abuse during the panel discussions that followed. This audience response changed Sefton's relationship to the material. "What was born in rage has become a joy," he said. "It feels more profound than anything else I've done on stage."

The panel discussion after the July 25 performance will feature Bessel van der Kolk, an author, researcher, and educator specializing in trauma treatment. Van der Kolk wrote the 2014 book "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" and lives in the Berkshires. The two met after a Cape Cod production when a psychologist introduced them.

Sefton said he wants survivors to feel heard and seen by attending. He also aims to encourage audience members to support bill H.1829 in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which would eliminate the statute of limitations in civil child sexual abuse cases. Current law allows a limit of 35 years to bring a civil suit or within seven years of discovering an emotional or psychological injury related to the abuse.

Sefton said the Catholic Church lobbies legislators to protect institutional interests, which he described as harmful to survivors and communities. He said the Academy of Music performance will likely be the last time the play runs in the area before he performs in England and Ireland in the fall, followed by an off-Broadway run.