An interesting and relevant entry
is The Christians by Lucas Hnath. This
one, presented like a combination of evangelical church service, revival
concert and confessional is about—well, it’s about a lot of things, but
mostly about the nature of faith; not only religious faith, but in whom you
have your personal faith. In this case, the who causing the
controversy is Pastor Paul (Andrew Garman).
He reports to his congregation that he was recently moved, at a religious
conference, by the story of a young Indian boy, not a Christian, who ran into a
fire, saved his younger sister, but himself perished of his burn wounds. And by
the storyteller, another pastor, regretting that they didn’t get to save the
boy. Meaning, of course, not save his life, but save his eternal soul.
For the simple fact of his not being
Christian, the young boy who had selflessly sacrificed himself, was surely
going to hell—so said the speaker at the conference. And, Pastor Paul
continues, he wept and struggled with that story, that night; until God spoke
to him. And assured him that there was no hell; that hell was the trials and tribulations of earth, and that
that young boy was standing next to Him in Heaven right now.
The
congregation finds the notion in turns comforting and disturbing. And almost
instantly, factions form. The associate pastor, Joshua (Larry Powell), a devout African American, has his own spiritual
POV that belies this. Jenny, a church congregant (Emily Donahoe) wants to be on board, but poses very challenging
questions at the heart of the premise, which elicit equally challenging
answers. Jay, a church elder (Philip Kerr),
bends with the prevailing wind until the wind makes it impossible to bend
further; as to the Pastor’s wife Elizabeth (Linda Powell), she has to decide if her primary faith is in
Jesus or in her husband.
If
you’re an atheist (as I am), there’s the added irony that the dramatized issue
is essentially one philosophy of magical thinking pitted against another. But
of course that’s a metaphor for any situation in which passions polarize people
to the point where there’s no getting at the truth, nor any truth to get at,
because passions obfuscate clarity. And the real issue is whether, or how,
people can find the sweet spot of tolerant co-existence between two extreme
poles of disagreement.
The
play is a kind of Shavian dialectic within a highly original theatrical
format—excellently played by the cast under the crisp direction of Les
Waters. Caveats? One: I think Mr. Hnath
goes a bridge too far with Pastor Paul’s most outrageous claim, within his new
conviction. Rather than spoil the moment, I’ll only say it’s a response to a
question. And I think it goes too far because he answers yes, and the yes both
pulls you out of the play (anyway it did both me and my companion), and rips
empathy (not sympathy; empathy) away from the pastor for a few crucial minutes
in a manner that seems like a playwright’s calculation rather than a sincere
response from the character as we’ve come to perceive him. The answer is a
pivotal one to the play’s progress, and one could argue that the pastor
defaults to it because, having committed himself to a conviction, he cannot
then publicly soften its absolutism; and as well that the playwright actually
intends for us to question our initial impression of the guy; but I’d argue
that if the answer were more ambiguous—i.e. “I don’t know the answer to
that one. I didn’t get that far with God. It never occurred to me to ask, and
given the bigger message he wants me to impart, I don’t think it’s something he
wants us to know; that’s where we have to have faith in his ultimate wisdom.
All I know for sure is, that boy is not in hell.”—the controversy that
follows could have an even greater capacity for legitimate dramatic ambiguity.
But
that’s a small blip within a nicely rendered exploration.
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