The Christians at BCT (MainStage)

Or: How to Define an Absence

Even the smell is somehow the same. That particular scent of religion toasted up, on Sunday mornings, of salty tears and sweaty robes, of righteousness. It’s a scent conjured up the moment you step into the theater and behold Erin Davidson’s set. If you ever spent time in a protestant church, it’s all there. The geometric set of the carpet, the stretched hides of projection screens showing nature panoramas and slow motion doves, the easeful pastel lights, the crosses literally popping out of the woodwork. Even in the tones of the electric organ (played by Rebecca Whitney) as she leads the choir in “We Are Climbing Jacob’s ladder,” summon a visceral sense of intimacy and alienness, which some might call uncanny and others hold as holy.

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We’ve entered the lion’s den, a place microphones echoing in cavernous space and electric cables snaking through the spiky plants of the pulpit, where demons breathe in the pauses: the alter of an American mega church, and Pastor Paul (Daniel Marmion) has a sermon for us.

Lucas Hnath’s The Christians fits both the space and the mission of Boise Contemporary Theater like a bespoke glove. It’s staging and story fills the old seed warehouse to its brim: a drama performed in astral dance of a service. The confessions, testimonies, confrontations, all unfold in the style of a church service: the way almost all the lines are spoken into microphones, or are carried out on white TV-ready chairs. The way the cast present themselves, especially how Elder Jane, (Patti O’Hara) who strides through the audience, casually putting her hand on knee or shoulder, broadcasting fellowship and serenity. The way even the most private of conversations is conscious of the congregation.

Marmion well bears the responsibility of fulcrum, the point from which the play revolves on. His Pastor Paul is a natural storyteller, full of a quiet, enticing majesty. His care is manifest and so is his concern. “We have a crack in the foundation of our church,” he begins, and declares a radical change for his faith. It is a proposition that will stun Elder Jane, appall Associate Pastor Joshua (Jonathan Bangs) and rock his (seemingly) perfect marriage to his wife Elizabeth (Janet Lo). It’s the closest you’d get to a Greek tragedy today: the hubris clock is wound and ticks its way to a dreadful chime. There is a crack in his foundation, but it not where the Pastor thinks.

Paul wields his calmness like a mace and clashes well against both Bang’s fervor (who burnishes Associate Pastor Joshua’s charisma while keeping a poise that cracks beautifully), and with Lo, who is a wonderful touchstone to watch as the smiling Preacher’s WifeTM, until she can get her husband “alone” and she can let her mask down and her eyes roll. Lo is particularly gifted at twisting the Elizabeth paradoxes that might otherwise snarl up a scene.

As the play goes on, faith takes flight. The soft lights and the organ music begin to falter and fade, the screens drain from lilac to monochrome, the lights dim to a hellish flicker. In a debate with a congregant, Jenny (Claire Blackwelder, superb with her pauses and admirably prickly) you can almost see the glowing surety and sanctimony flaking off Paul and flying away from him.

There’s a lot of talk about distance in the play, the uncrossable gap between soul and soul, between what is known and what faith prompts us to profess. And we see that distance, where everyone is dancing around what they really want to say, but in such a way that defines that absence perfectly. No matter one’s view or knowledge of the Christian faith, it raises questions and disquieting thoughts, and shifts our sympathies in a kaleidoscopic tumble. It’s a sermon you won’t want to miss.