The Savannah Disputation

I’m incredibly lucky that Annette, one of my nearest and dearest, is a freelance stage manager in the City. Thanks to her, since moving to New York, I’ve gotten to see a lot of theater for free or very cheap. From Broadway to Off-Broadway to Central Park, she’s taken me to see workshops, rock musicals, revivals, and new works. Some of it’s been the awful, some of it’s been amazing, and some of it is just so-so, but I’m always grateful that Annette shares these experiences with me.

Last week, she sent me to see The Savannah Disputation by Evan Smith at Playwright’s Horizon. It’s a hilarious, irreverent play, but I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it on my own. Having grown up in the heart of the Bible Belt and witnessed a 4-year-old Baptist tell my 6-year-old sister she was going burn in hell for having a Jewish father, I’m generally not too keen on watching the religious skewer each other over differences in beliefs. The play is the story of an elderly Catholic woman, Margaret, whose faith is tested by a Pentacostal missionary, Melissa, who is bent on saving Catholics from the path to hell. When Margaret’s sister, Mary, finds out what’s going on she calls in the parish priest, Father Murphy, to save her sister and put Melissa in her place.

And there were times throughout the play that I was vaguely uncomfortable with the religious histrionics, in between my uproarious laughter. You can’t help but laugh when Father Murphy at the dinner table jokes, “The catholics are lucky that Jesus wasn’t stoned to death. Instead of crossing themselves, they’d be stoning themselves” and then proceeds to playfully beat his fists against his head. Or when Mary tells Margaret not to encourage the evangelical preacher to come back to the door, “Don’t encourage her; they’re just like cats.” But ultimately the razzle dazzle fights of zealots doesn’t hold up. These Catholics don’t know their theology and neither does the Pentacostal.

Mary, played with daffy brilliance by Marylouise Burke, and Margaret, played by the pitch-perfectly sour Dana Ivey, are shocked at missionary Melissa’s assertion that the Catholics believe in the resurrection of the physical body. Margaret declares that “just plain stupid” and Father Murphy is shocked by Margaret’s pronouncement. Evidently, his parishioners aren’t really listening when they recite the profession of the catholic faith. At his request, Mary and Margaret go through the whole litany, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord… I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body… .” Mary is dumbfounded when she gets there. And soon she too is questioning the path of righteousness.

The on-and-off path for Mary and Margaret is a tilt-a-whirl of grammatical sparring, bible searching, soul baring, and earnest converting. It’s a testament to the skill of the four actors that they manage to keep us laughing and with them, as the play flounders to provide concrete reasons for each of the character’s reversals of heart. Perhaps the most troubling of which was the mild mannered Father Murphy () who at first refuses to participate in a bible-off and then later, inexplicably enters with an almost manic glee.

I too experienced a change of heart. When I first left the theater, I was charmed and delighted by the cotton candy hilarity and the stellar acting, but just like childhood trips to the circus with an all-you-can-eats-sweets policy—I wish there had been something a little more substantial (and believable) slipped into the free-for-all.

Image courtesy of http://www.newyorktheatreguide.com.