Before this atheistic aesthete indulges, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, in a rant about this play’s egregiously pompous hifalutin name, I feel compelled to confess that:
1.) A Case for the Existence of God is certainly a well-written, well-acted, and well-directed drama, and I recommend that serious theatergoers see it; 2.) The award-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter is definitely a very accomplished wordsmith and a better writer than I’ll ever be (he wrote 2022’s The Whale, which Brendan Fraser won the Best Actor Oscar for, and in 2014 won a MacArthur “Genius Grant”). So please don’t let this rave against the ostentatious affectation of Case’s moniker put you off from experiencing it after you read the rest of my review (and perhaps of some of my colleagues’ critiques), if these write-ups do inspire you to see it.
But before I write my review per se, allow your cranky ol’ critic to just get this out of his cantankerous system:
For your information, Mr. Hunter, to paraphrase HUAC, there is not now and never has been a “god.” The notion of some sort of supreme being, a supernatural superman, has been a mere illusion of the delusional for centuries. Furthermore, Mr. Hunter, if by some far distant chance, there was a kind of god, he/she/it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING whatsoever to do with the subject matter of your one-act play. So please spare us; just shut up with the religious mumbo jumbo, so we can focus on what this two-hander—and life—is really about.
The play opens in, and almost entirely takes place in, the office (realistically crafted by scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz) of a mortgage brokerage firm in Twin Falls, Idaho (where Hunter grew up). The proverbial curtain lifts as Ryan (Carlo Mancasola) is reading what I, being a scribbler, assumed was a manuscript, and Keith (Nicholas Anthony Reid) seemed to me to be trying to explain what the text means. But it turns out that Ryan is actually seeking a loan, and as his potential mortgage broker who hopes to be retained to find a lending institution that will provide Ryan with the funds to build the home of his dreams, Keith has crafted some sort of prospectus that Ryan is trying to make heads and tails of.
The societal status and power dynamic between the two 30-something men is uneven. Ryan may be a straight white male, and Keith a Black gay man, but the latter comes from a more educated, well-to-do background. Ryan’s father died while he was young, while Keith’s dad was a lawyer who’d fly his family for holidays to places such as Estonia. Keith graduated from university, while Ryan attended high school and is a blue-collar worker.
Nevertheless, the two men have much in common. Neither is in a romantic relationship; as the curtain lifts, Ryan is in the process of a divorce, which his wife sought. Both men are trying to raise little girls: Ryan, his biological daughter; Keith, a child he’s caring for through the fostering system. Ryan is anxious that he’ll lose custody rights to his daughter, while Keith is nervous that a blood relation of the little girl he’s bringing up will appear from out of nowhere and take her away.
On a more profound level, one could argue that the American Dream has failed both of them. Ryan yearns to reclaim land that formerly belonged to his family generations ago, while Keith majored in an esoteric music course but has forsaken that artsy aspiration to be a cog in the capitalist wheel as a mortgage broker. It kind of reminded me of how Edward Albee named his lead characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “George” and “Martha” (you know, as in Washington), who fret about the child they never had (like, you know, America).
As it turns out, the two men share a past, and over 100-minutes or so (sans intermission), they develop a bond. Hunter has written realistic dialogue that is at all times convincingly delivered by Mancasola and Reid. I bought their performances throughout, and I’m sure that the venerable John Perrin Flynn—co-founder of Rogue Machine, one of L.A.’s very best intimate theaters—used his extraordinary gifts as a director to guide his gifted thespians to craft their finely honed, moving performances. (Flynn is also helming Hunter’s Grangeville, currently extended and on the boards at the Ruskin Group Theatre Arts Center in Santa Monica.)
This is an excellent character study of two different yet similar men that is about friendship and family and loneliness. But A Case for the Existence of God has absolutely NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with deities or religion, although I guess one could make a case to this theological backslider that the play’s theme may touch upon spirituality. This is for theatergoers who enjoy father/daughter; family; Black; gay; working-class subject matter, as well as top-notch acting, writing, and direction. And Case is showcased perfectly in Rogue Machine’s upstairs, 30-ish seat venue, The Henry Murray Stage—a molecular theater inside of an intimate theater.
And now I close with a final word about god, that “opiate of the people,” by a far better writer than I—or Mr. Hunter: “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions… Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain, not so that man will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation but so that he will shake off the chain and cull the living flower.”—Karl Marx in 1844’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.
Rogue Machine is presenting the L.A. premiere of A Case for the Existence of God at 8:00 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays and 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 11 at the Matrix Theatre upstairs in The Henry Murray Stage, 7657 Melrose Avenue, L.A., California, 90048. For reservations, call (855)585-5185 or https://roguemachine.ludus.com.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
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