Confessions, on stage.
There are no shortage of attacks on the Catholic Church and the media. From El Crimen del Padre Amaro and the pederasty scandals, to books like Bias and What Liberal Media? as well as the recent New York Times debacle, the first and fourth estates have been taking a beating of late. Screaming in the Wilderness, a new play by Vanda currently showing in Emerging Artist Theatre's double-decker series at the Mint Space, takes on both to interesting, if not thoroughly successful, effect.
The show starts with a short parody of the Catholic mass, conducted mostly in poorly pronounced Spanish, a choice that goes unexplained. The main characters are the Archduke and Subregent of Golgotha Cathedral (no symbolism spared here), and throughout the play they are addressed with an intentionally ridiculous string of epithets in the vein of "His Holiness" and "Highness." The mass sets the tone and also includes the event that drives the play: a claim by the dashing young priest Father Allen (Gerald Downey) that he is Christ returned. In attendance at that Mass are Nadine (Cynthia Brown), and her father-figure, the thickly accented Mordecai (Barbara J. Spence).
Nadine is a haunted woman, terrorized by the specter of her deceased mother. She is also a tv reporter with something to prove, overworked and going nowhere. When she hears Father Allen's sermon-and is the only one struck by his claim-she decides to investigate and make it a career vehicle.
The rest of the play unfolds from there, entangling characters and their pasts. Father Allen's estranged sister Jane (Danielle Quisenberry) is a secretary at the cathedral, and she tells Nadine the sad, sordid story of their childhood. Mordecai wanders in and out, and the extent of the corruption in the Church, which is struggling to draw people into the fold, becomes more and more apparent. Nadine finally gets a break in her pursuit of Father Allen and is on the verge of achieving her goal of Walter Cronkite-style investigative reporting success, but alas, barriers crop up incessantly, and there is no real resolution.
Compared to most off-off-Broadway productions, Screaming in the Wilderness is long. The actors are talented, particularly Brown and Quisenberry, who play two or more characters. Several of the actors play characters of the opposite sex. While necessary for a small production, the minimal costume changes that mark a switch from one character to another can be disorienting. Still, it's interesting to see actors take on such different parts, morphing from Golgotha's egotistical Subregent Dillaway into an aw-shucks Southern woman who believes fervently in Father Allen.