As irritating as door-to-door proselytizers can be, they’re preferable to door-to-door solicitors. At least the sharing of faith still is usually rooted in a selfless concern for the well-being of one’s fellow man.
Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to laugh at Melissa, the naive-but-earnest evangelist at the heart of Evan Smith’s uneasy new play, “The Savannah Disputation,” which opened Wednesday night at Writers’ Theatre. As played by the intensely empathetic Chicago actress Suzanne Lang, Melissa is a sweet and vulnerable soul, sincere in belief and easily open to attack. Smith badly wants us to laugh at her incredulously naive interpretation of the Bible. But to do so feels mean, and so your laughter gets stuck halfway in your throat.
In essence, the director Michael Halberstam has stacked his premiere production with a quartet of very capable Chicago actors, all of whom approach their characters with great depth and sincerity. But the weight of the performances is completely at odds with the flippancy of the script.
If you’re looking for something of intellectual or social substance, the play keeps floating back to the situational comedic surface. If you’re looking for some sort of silly southern satire, these just aren’t the actors. They’re too good. They’ve created four real, raw people. But they’re not all that funny.
The titular argument in Georgia is one between those of Protestant and Catholic denomination. I’m always intrigued by a good theological debate in the theater, but this one comes with stacked decks.
The mission-oriented Melissa, whose appearance at a front door guarded by two Catholic sisters starts the dramatic action, is all alone in her stereotypical evangelical behavior — manifested, of course, through her total lack of any capacity for relativist thought. In the other corner are three Catholics: two droll, feisty southern sisters named Mary and Margaret (played by Marilynn Bogetich and Linda Kimbrough) and the erudite, witty Father Murphy (played by Robert Scoggin) they enlist to help them repel the unwelcome invader. This likable priest both sees nuance in the world and knows his way around a really good Scotch. It’s not hard to see on which side the playwright’s sympathies lie.
Smith is under no obligation, of course, to provide a sense of denominational balance. But it’s just too hard to buy the basic premise here that Melissa — or, more specifically, Lang’s Melissa — would be that ignorant about and rude to Catholics. Or, for that matter, that Linda Kimbrough’s Margaret would allow such a person to so get under her skin and make her question a lifetime of belief. In short, it’s a contrivance performed by actors who almost bust a gut trying to flesh out something on bones that can’t hold their meat.
Smith is an erudite young writer, for sure, whose best plays lie ahead. And Scoggin’s priest is a rich enough creation to make sure the night isn’t a total bust. Bogetich is good, too. And Kimbrough, a master craftsman, has moments where she evokes some kind of Beckettian antihero, toddling haplessly (and sadly) around the room. But someone has to settle on a style here.
“The Savannah Disputation”
When: Through Nov. 25
Where: Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct., Glencoe
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Tickets: $40-$58 at 847-242-6000
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cjones5@tribune.com
