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The Savannah Disputation - Media Reviews
Atlanta Theatre Buzz:
The Savannah Disputation
08/26/2009
Grade: B
Watching Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at Marietta's Theatre in the Square, an arkload of contradictory reactions danced two-by-two through my experience of it. Let's see if I can frame these reactions as a faux-catechism.
Is the play any good?
The short answer is yes. It is filled with compelling arguments, lively dialog, precise characters, excellent performances and evocative design. The concept appeals to me (an emotion-driven argument between two conflicting Christian Dogmas) and came across as a group of people in a real (albeit theatrical) conflict, rather than paper-thin character-constructs acting as the playwright's soapbox.
Are the arguments fair?
They seem so. The script may be slanted against the Fundamentalist "missionary" (Melissa), but she is never reduced to a caricature and is never given "straw-man" easy-to-refute arguments.
Are the arguments valid?
The characters (and playwright) seem to think so. I'm not so sure. They all have their faiths, deeply and emotionally felt, and all are able to find scriptural support for their point of view. Yet is that the best tactic when defending your religion? Faith, by its very nature, defies reason - it is something deeply and (hopefully) honestly felt in your heart of hearts. Defending a belief seems to be rather like defending the color of your eyes.
So why do they do it?
I believe they simply cannot conceive that they may be wrong. Melissa the missionary, by definition, must evangelize. So, like the proverbial bull in the china shop, she considers it an act of love to go into some strangers' house and tell them they are not Christian and are going to hell because they are Catholic. ("I'm a missionary to the Catholic world.") She is literally blind to the insult that is.
How do the arguments stack up when heard by a non-believer?
The differences struck me as really trivial. The point of conflict, though couched as scripture and dogma, boils down to a tribal identity - I want you to be part of my group, because your group is evil. I liked that the play emphasized the filtered nature of the Bible, that heresies and even cults can be formed simply by a badly translated or transcribed word or phrase. Naturally, we non-believers believe the whole thing is the work of mankind, not Godkind, so that's the weakest argument there. But it's that basic belief that is at the core of all the arguments.
Do the actors make even you believe?
You betcha! Judy Leavell and Nita Harty related like real sisters, Peter Thomasson's priest was smart and kind, and Mary Kathryn Kaye made the singularly charmless and aggravating Melissa a sad (but not pathetic) figure. It was easy to see why Ms. Hardy's Margaret was taken by her, and wanted to invite her back. Oddly enough (and I may be alone in this feeling), I can picture Melissa becoming a friend of the sisters, even of the priest.
And the set?
I could almost smell the Savannah air, that unique combination of ocean and Spanish moss. The room looked tidy and lived-in, the lights warm and inviting. It was inviting, if only to taste Margaret's Banana Pudding.
Would anything have made the play better?
I would have liked to see some blinders taken down. Yes, Mary and Margaret learned a bit about their own Catholicism, and the Father Murphy learned more than he would have liked about the beliefs of his parishioners. But no one seemed to come to any ability to accommodate others' faiths. Father Murphy gives Melissa a wonderfully evocative image of the continuing line of the church fathers stretching back through the centuries. She at first seems moved, but fights the feeling with the Revelations image of Rome (and Catholicism) being the female embodiment of evil. She leaves the play just as blind to how she insults her hosts as she was at the start.
Should we see it?
You betcha! And, if I'm any judge of diverse groups of friends, you should talk about it afterwards. It is a funny, engaging, aggravating, and stimulating theatrical experience. It would be a sin to miss it!
Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Demons lurk beneath the sunny exteriors of Christians in Theatre in the Square's fall opener
08/24/2009
Could it be that religion is just a subterfuge for meanness and ignorance? Is it appropriate to knock on a total stranger’s door and challenge that person’s faith? What happens when we realize we don’t believe an apostle’s prayer we have been uttering for as long as we can remember?
These aren’t the kinds of questions you’d expect to emerge from a comedy, let alone a play like Evan Smith’s The Savannah Disputation, which opens the fall season of Marietta’s Theatre in the Square and suggests a rollicking, zinger-strewn domestic sitcom as written by a Christian disciple of Alfred Uhry.
Where the Atlanta-born Uhry mines the landscape of Southern Jewry for its comedic peculiarities and human commonalities, Savannah-born Smith peeks into the living room of another religious minority living in the historically Protestant Deep South — Roman Catholics.
Two aging Savannah sisters — sweet-natured spinster Margaret (Nita Hardy) and bullying divorcee Mary (Judy Leavell) — inhabit a cozy living room decorated with granny-square afghans, religious statuary and a requisite photograph of JFK. All it takes to upset their neatly ordered universe is a perky blonde Christian fundamentalist (Mary Kathryn Kaye) with a religious pamphlet depicting a man rising from his grave in modern-day attire.
Though Mary shoos proselytizing Melissa away and threatens to call the police if she returns, ding-batty Margaret is a much easier target for the fashionably appointed Bible thumper. Pretty soon, pithy one-liners give way to a full-out catfight, and Mary invites a priest disguised as a dinner guest (Peter Thomasson) to mitigate the conflict and make a case for the Throne of St. Peter.
This being the stuff that’s spawned several centuries’ worth of religious wars and conflict, things don’t turn out so prettily.
In an interview with the New York Times, Smith — who has a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama and an impressive off-Broadway résumé — calls his play a debate between The Religious Right and The Religious Right (well put) and says it was inspired by national politics — and his Savannah grandmother.
With solid instincts for timing and dialogue, Smith attempts to navigate the tricky middle ground between zany comedy and social commentary. He does a pretty nice job, too, but something about the vicious intent of his characters may leave you feeling a little icky. How is it that lovers of Christ can turn out to be so nasty?
Directed by Jessica Phelps West and handsomely designed by Isabel A. Curley-Clay (sets) and Moriah Curley-Clay (costumes), it is a solid, well-acted production. (Leavell — an actress who seems to have hit her stride in her senior years — is particularly fine.) But Smith’s scathing account of the demons lurking under the sunny exteriors of small-town America doesn’t necessarily make for pleasant theater-going. More spiritually complicated than it appears to be at first glance, The Savannah Disputation is every bit as unsettling as it is entertaining.
Creative Loafing:
Witty "Savannah" disputes the value of your own personal Jesus: "The Savannah Disputation" finds humor in religious tension between Catholics and evangelicals
08/24/2009
Theatre in the Square’s Southern comedy The Savannah Disputation bears little resemblance to the disturbing drama Doubt, but both rest on similar foundations. John Patrick Shanley’s hit play-turned-Oscar-nominated film used a 1960s church scandal to consider the dangers of blind faith and the virtues of doubt.
The Savannah Disputation tells a considerably lighter story, with bickering, mismatched characters and contrived confrontations suitable for a TV sitcom. Yet the comedic efficiency of Savannah-based playwright Evan Smith supports a deceptively thoughtful discussion of the complexities of religious belief. The opening play of Theatre in the Square’s 28th season, The Savannah Disputation supports the Marietta playhouse’s solid track record for pleasing audiences without pandering to them.
The play takes place at the home of two Catholic spinsters: divorced, crotchety Mary (Judy Leavell), and meek, never-married Margaret (Nita Hardy). Mary proves to be both a devout church-goer and a holy terror with a litany of complaints and putdowns for fellow parishioners and passers-by. In contrast, Margaret is well-meaning but wishy-washy and seems to have a mysterious health ailment (a point the play doesn’t overemphasize). Leavell’s hard-charging hostility finds a fitting foil in Hardy’s benign, ethereal approach.
Margaret’s uncertainty leaves her vulnerable to the attentions of Melissa (Mary Kathryn Kaye), a blond, beaming evangelical missionary who seeks “to convert Catholics to Christianity.” Melissa hands out pamphlets from sources such as the Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit Alliance Church and undermines Margaret’s confidence in Catholicism. Mary finds herself unable to match Melissa’s anti-Catholic arguments, so she invites the younger woman over to dinner on the same night they’re feeding Father Murphy (Peter Thomasson), their local priest.
Where Doubt’s Father Flynn served as a suspect, Disputation’s Father Murphy turns out to be more of a referee. He prefers banana pudding to religious proselytizing and is aghast that Mary has dragooned him into a theological debate. The Savannah Disputation's dramatic conceit of pitting different Christian denominations against each other allows the playwright to critique the methods of overbearing evangelicals without attacking anyone’s actual belief system. (Last year, Horizon Theatre’s The Missionary Position walked a similar tightrope.)
Father Murphy and Melissa can each quote chapter and verse to support their respective churches. Disputation contains plenty of interesting tidbits of religious scholarship that cast doubt on the authority of the good book and the pope alike, not unlike to those interesting historical nuggets from "The Da Vinci Code." The dogma underpins larger concerns about human worth and decency, and whether being a good Christian is truly the same as being a good person.
Kaye and Thomasson provide telling performances of people with similar levels of religious dedication yet entirely opposite methods. Kaye finds the humor in Melissa’s perky aggressiveness that refuses to take no for an answer and believes in saving others — whether they like it or not. During a rare moment of uncertainty she laments, “From now on, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and go back to the Lancome counter.” Thomasson shrewdly avoids Irish priest stereotypes to portray Father Murphy as scholarly, soft-spoken and wise in the gentlest possible way.
Director Jessica Phelps West comes up with enough funny stage business to keep the play from turning into a dry debate. Still, after about an hour, Disputation builds to one character’s explosive, applause-milking speech, and some of the steam escapes for the final third of the 90-minute show. Nevertheless, so many comedies about squabbling Southerners offer such simplistic conflicts and broad strokes that The Savannah Disputation’s bedrock of provocative ideas feels like a blessing.
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