The search for faith is joyous, messy, confounding … that is, unless you think like some who will proclaim (and rather loudly, at that) that God can be contained in a very particular box.
Kate Fodor has chosen the more difficult, but perhaps more rewarding, path for the characters she created for her play 100 Saints You Should Know, opened last night at the Weekend Theater, Seventh and Chester streets in downtown Little Rock.
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 21; tickets are $16 for general adult admission and $12 for students and seniors. To purchase, visit www.weekendtheater.org; tickets will also be available at the door. For information only, call the theater at (501) 374-3761. The production runs Friday and Saturday nights through September 21.
Director Alan Douglas first saw “100 Saints” in New York about 5 years ago, and describes it as “a beautiful little play.”
“I knew it was something special by the way it got to me, as if it whispered to me, very gently and very deeply,” Douglas says.
Matthew (Ryan Whitfield), a priest in his 30s, is on the verge of abandoning his calling after an indiscretion has prompted his higher-ups to “suggest” he take a break. And so he is staying with his mother, Colleen (Patti German), a traditional Catholic confident in her faith.
Meanwhile, Theresa (Julie Atkins), a single mother who has been the cleaning woman at Matthew’s rectory, has begun to realize that her youthful rebellion against her strict educator parents has not led to the “something bigger than herself” that she so desired. So, she finds herself drawn toward a traditional expression of faith.
Then there are the two teenagers, both questioning their place in the world. Abby (Emily Shull), is Theresa’s daughter, and clashes with her mother about everything. And Garrett (Nicholas Ryan Abel) is confused about his own sexual identity.
The paths of these searching souls intersect in one fateful night – but don’t expect tidy little answers wrapped up in a neat little package.
“In a way, it’s about the search for connection, whether it’s God, or spirit, or each other – reaching out for something more than you,” Atkins says.
Some of us may be a trifle impatient with all the blathering about religion these days – what is it for, what’s the point? But still, the various factions keep on keeping on, and giving some comfort, it seems.
“My favorite people in the world have always been the ones who either struggle to understand God or are really at peace with God or, even better, who feel called to be their best selves in answer to what they hear God trying to tell them,” Douglas says.
That very human fumbling along a path with few definitive markers is at the heart of “100 Saints You Should Know.” But wherever it leads, the point is to open up your soul, not chain it down.
As one of those saints, Therese de Lisieux, is quoted: “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”
Little Rock Culture Vulture 