ENTERTAINMENT

Humana Festival play ‘The Christians’ tests rigors of faith

Elizabeth Kramer
@arts_bureau

“Hold onto God’s unchanging hand,” sings the chorus that welcomes congregants to the church. “Build your hopes on things eternal,” the singers intone.

But things are about to change — and in front of the entire congregation — in Lucas Hnath’s new play “The Christians,” which opened Thursday in the second installment of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Hnath’s story plays out like a church service in which Pastor Paul, after reflecting on a story about the heroic death of a non-Christian boy, reveals that he no longer believes in hell.

“A radical change,” reads part of Pastor Paul’s Power-Point presentation shown on two large screens that flank either side of the church chancel. It’s also a belief that the pastor will not compromise as he invites those congregants who disagree to leave. Some do, including Joshua, an assistant pastor whose path to Christianity was a difficult one — but one that leads his church colleagues to refer to him as “very popular.”

The story of Pastor Paul — as he struggles to share his new-found belief with other leaders of the church and his wife, Elizabeth — questions the importance of theology in keeping a community together and requiring all members believe the same thing. Are rigorously shared beliefs also necessary to a thriving community, a successful marriage? Here, the answer is always “yes.”

What strongly reinforces the feeling of this play as a religious service is the set itself designed by Dane Laffrey. It includes serene-inducing blue carpet, a glass pulpit, colorful banners and an overall geometrical balance with the placement of the throne-like arm chairs lined across the stage and the design on the back wall with its large back-lit cross.

The microphones as well as many of the characters’ stances throughout the production — much of which Hnath has written into the play and director Les Water’s accentuates — have the strong effect of keeping other characters distant from each other and their emotions, mostly, in check.

This is most evident when Emily Donahoe, acting as a skeptical congregant, questions Pastor Paul (Andrew Garman) about the meaning and timing of his profound change of heart. She starts off reading from a letter she’s written about the importance of the church in her life as a single mother and low-wage earner who tithes 20 percent of her earnings. As she launches into a string of theological questions directed at Paul, she leaves the pulpit to hear his answers. But when the conversation intensifies, she goes back to the podium to read from her letter.

The production features recognizable stagecraft emblematic in American evangelical Christian churches that are sometimes part of the megachurch movement. But Hnath’s deft writing and Waters’ well-hewed direction also help “The Christians” reveal how that stagecraft works to beguile those under its spell to disassociate themselves from their gut-feelings and maintain a veneer of control — particularly in a rapidly changing and daunting world.

The performances of the actors deserve credit for making these hidden themes so clear, including Linda Powell as Paul’s wife Elizabeth — especially when she finally gets the chance to have her husband hear her voice and her beliefs later in the play — and Larry Powel’s portrayal of Joshua, who earlier this season gave ATL audiences a very different powerful performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop.”

Reporter Elizabeth Kramer can be reached at (502) 582-4682. Follow her on Twitter at @arts_bureau.