Something strange and wonderful is happening during The Crusade of Connor Stephens (currently playing in The Jerry Orbach Theatre at The Snapple Theatre Centre on 50th and Broadway). It’s happening at every performance, I bet. Silence. Silence, complete and thorough. Audiences are giving this play their rapt attention because of the dramatic tension the director/playwright has created in this devastating, heartbreaking and timely piece. Dewey Moss’s audiences are silent because they are doing what few audiences in a Broadway, Off-Broadway or Off-Off theatre rarely do; they are listening.
However, they are not just listening to the harrowing tale told by this play (seamlessly crafted by Mr. Moss and executed at times stoically or with gargantuan emotional prowess by the brilliant company of players). Audience members at The Crusade of Connor Stephens are also quietly experiencing the crushing themes that this play mines; they are experiencing tragic loss. No spoilers here, the audience is reliving the story of the tragic deaths of not one, but two children at the outset of this play. What is ultimately revealed is, well, the death of innocence itself. This is a tragic tale. This is a tale of good and evil, of dark and light, of the saved and the damned. We are left to judge for ourselves who is going to “the sweet by and by” and who is not. Make no mistake, this is a full two hours containing the kind of plot revelation and family secrets that make us decide how we want to be remembered as a country. Mr. Moss knows he’s throwing down a gauntlet here, and Evangelical audience members sitting side by side with vocal members of the LGBTQ community were all in attendance on the night I saw this chilling performance.
The plot is quite straight forward, really. A young man in a small town (Connor Stephens) who seems to be a religious zealot, has shot and killed a child (Tess) and wounded her father Kris (Alec Shaw, in a breathtakingly emotional performance). In the aftermath of the shooting, Kris along with his husband (and Tess's other father) Jim Jr. are now left to face a mob of reporters outside their family home on the day of the funeral. Jim Jr. is played beautifully by Ben Curtis who immediately sets up the broken, stoic reserve we are used to seeing from survivors of massive loss. (Bravo to Mr. Curtis, who saves his tears, hiding them in the bottom of a bottle so that when they spill, we spill ours too.) Kris’s sister Kimmy (played with the sweetest grace by Julie Campbell) has arrived to help out with her husband Bobby (played winningly with a testosterone-fueled performance by Jacques Mitchell). Jim Jr. and Kris are surprised on the day of their daughter’s funeral by the arrival of Jim Jr.’s mother, played staunchly with a scorching-hot rage by Katherine Leask, and his Grandma Vivi’n, played by Kathleen Huber, whose performance is lovely and grounded, wise, firm and gentle, funny and tragic all in a moment, and finally, Jim Jr.’s father, Big Jim. Big Jim (the brilliant James Kiberd) is the local Pastor of the town. Mr. Kiberd is the driving force of the play. He’s mercurial in the role, completely thrilling to watch from the minute he steps on stage, focused, emotionally present, ferociously lecturing his family of his “God given right” to save anyone and everyone in his path. (I was reminded of Robert Duvall’s performance in The Apostle but Mr. Kiberd is so excellent an artist, there’s some Michael Madsen in there too, downtrodden but filled with righteous rage, a lion ready to pounce on any young lion cub who seeks to challenge his authority.)
The play was written immediately after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred, and Moss throws us straight into the fray, upping the ante by portraying the rift between gay parents and the religious right. However, the crux of the conflict is where Moss’s work begins to get more complicated and more thrilling. Salvation seems to elude even the most forthright members of this community and as we are introduced to the inner workings of Pastor Jim and his family, we begin to see cracks in the megachurch’s façade. Big Jim has come to offer a eulogy for Tess’s funeral, but we discover that he’s also planning to provide comfort to Connor’s family on that same day. Big Jim’s own moral stance is deeply questioned by none other than the matriarch of the family Grandma Vivi’n (Kathleen Huber), his mother, who sees parallels in an important loss of her own. Again and again we are brought deeper into this family’s past transgressions and it is Pastor Jim’s “friend in Jesus” Dean (played with earnest confusion by Clifton Samuels) that ultimately creates the rift this family may or may not survive.
Fortunately there are moments of well-timed comedic relief provided throughout the drama by the aforementioned stately matriarch. However reserved, Ms. Huber’s performance allows us to take in (as much as we are able) the enormity of the loss and the rage and the sorrow this story holds. The plot’s inner workings unfold gingerly throughout the course of a taut, tension-filled evening at the theatre and “the truth will out.” Ms. Huber’s reserve in her darkest moments allows for a moment’s pause during the battle of good and evil, a battle which she’s clearly witnessed again and again through the lives of the men she’s loved and lost. Bravo to Ms. Huber, who trusts us enough to see the scorching pain of a long life, one lived with certain regrets. And bravo to the writer/director Mr. Moss, who fearlessly goes where few would dare. Mr. Moss’s direction keeps the story moving with simple, effective staging. His writing allows us to examine both sides of every issue, with emphasis on words like “loss” and “saved,” jewels whose every facet is revealed. (In a brilliant moment of clarity near the end of the play, Jim Jr. finds his voice using the word “saved” in a way I’ve never heard it used before.) We find salvation in the young father’s remarks, the deepest, most crushing moments of this beautiful play. It’s gorgeous, devastating stuff, folks. Run, save yourselves, do not miss The Crusade of Connor Stephens.
