‘Terce’ Review: How the Other Half Prays, in a Reimagined Mass

When I’ve had the opportunity, as a wandering Jew, to visit the houses of worship of friends, I’ve never felt much in danger of conversion. But if I did, it would surely be the music that got me.

That’s also been true for me when visiting the church of Heather Christian: I’m not sure what faith she’s selling, but I’m a sucker for the way it sounds. In “Terce: A Practical Breviary,” which opened on Sunday at the Space at Irondale in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she offers a new installment in what is evidently a plan to remake the Catholic Mass of her childhood in egalitarian if cryptic new terms.

She’s doing so one rhapsodic service at a time. In 2020 she offered “Prime,” her version of the 6 a.m. liturgy. “Terce,” produced by Here as the centerpiece of this year’s Prototype festival, advances three hours to midmorning. (The title derives from the Latin for “third.”) By then, a congregation would presumably be awake enough to absorb its sunlit richness.

That richness does not depend on the usual elements of plays or prayer: characters and narratives, pipe organs and priests. “Terce” is not theater except to the extent that religious ritual, being a parent of theater, bears a family resemblance.

And it’s more of a spectacle than a service. Instead of emulating a leader-follower dichotomy, “Terce” draws from the talents and experiences of a singing, dancing and playing ensemble of 38 “caregivers and makers” — some professional and even virtuosic like Christian, some amateur and unpolished. Keyboards, guitars, woodwinds, strings and percussion are part of the instrumental mix (music direction by Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh and Jacklyn Riha), but so are key rings, silverware, an eggbeater and a vacuum cleaner.

As those homely implements suggest, “Terce” focuses on the work of people not often celebrated in liturgy: those who keep house, cultivate gardens, nurture children. A program note describes the approach as a “lens of the divine feminine,” albeit one that does not reject maleness.