3 Questions

A live reading of Liz Randol's Grace and the Grail, a screenplay set partly in old Gnostic Christian traditions, is coming to El Museo Cultural on Wednesday. A local shamanic healer and former Hollywood film editor, Randol says the script has been eyed by actors like Helen Mirren and Drew Barrymore.

Tell me about this reading.

This is primarily a story of two women who love each other over several lifetimes, one in Santa Fe present time, where [women are] denigrated for helping women control their reproductive lives, and one in France, where they are revered as wise women and rulers. It's an earthy story, very sexy, there are heterosexual love stories in it as well, and it brings together a lot of sexuality with spirituality.

What drew you to this story of powerful women?

I've always been kind of a feminist, but what originally drew me to this story actually was this client who had this past life, which is not unusual in my work, and he just started talking about this society and the way men and women supported each other and the way that they treated each other with love and respect. I couldn't wait to get him off my table, so I could go research this, and find out that this was really true and history we didn't really know.

Why is it important to know this missing history?

We have a tendency to think that things have always been the way they are right now, and we don't think that we have any models for a better time. [But] there was a time when men really supported women for being in their power and weren't threatened by it…I was in the south of France a few years ago, researching this history myself. And reading it from the original French, I realized that the French had a very different story of the early days of Christianity, and theirs was the authentic one. And the empowerment of women was a part of that…This is the kind of movie that a lot of young people and a lot of women really need to see right now. And I hope it gets picked up.

Santa Fe Reporter