Note: This is a review for New Play Project’s last show, Lost & Found, which ran April 10-12 & 14, 2008.

“That’s how we live: having to fight not to feel lost as often as we feel found.” This line from James Goldberg’s introduction to New Play Project’s Lost & Found show was an excellent description of the theme that ran through this series of NPP’s religious plays (for the uninitiated, see the introduction to my last NPP review). I’ve decided once again to review each play individually:

Hope of Israel
Playwright: Arisael Rivera
Director: Maelyn Gándola
Asst. Director: Sierra Ortega
Actors: Hunter Brown (Jacob), Becca Esmerelda Bailey (Kaitlyn), Christian Cragun (Ryan), Brissa Porter (Emily)

Synopsis: Four college-age friends find their casual banter turning into a discussion about what they would do if they weren’t Mormon. This initial tongue-in-cheek discussion takes a more serious turn when one of the friends reveals that she seriously struggles with understanding the law of chastity.

Comments: Ari Rivera, a longtime participant in New Play Project, is very good at writing casual scenes with quirky yet realistic characters and snappy dialogue. As I may have mentioned previously, he has the makings of an excellent sitcom writer. It was intriguing to see his talent applied to a more serious subject. While watching “Hope of Israel,” I at first found the transition from banter to serious a bit jarring, but then I remembered that college students’ discussions often play out this way. The more weighty conversations are often book-ended with jokes and flirtatious teasing. This is an example of one of Terryl Givens’ paradoxes of Mormonism: the disintegration of sacred space. It’s one of the things I appreciate most about student and singles wards: those moments when the young adult preoccupation with self (and the opposite sex) is set aside to make space for more sacred things. This sounds sappy, but I love going to church Sunday morning and seeing the kid who was juggling knives at the ward talent show the night before sitting at the sacrament table, white-shirted and dark-suited, ready to perform a sacred ordinance. I think that “Hope of Israel” in a way illustrated this paradoxical duality of Mormon student life.

The ending scene in “Hope of Israel” is a priesthood blessing, and I was impressed by how respectfully this was done: hands laid on a head as the lights fade to black. I don’t have much of a problem seeing certain priesthood ordinances displayed in works of film or theatre, so long as they’re warranted. But in this instance, the actual words of the blessing weren’t as important as this moment of two male friends offering to give spiritual strength and comfort to a friend who clearly needed it. I felt that the way this scene was done showed a sensitivity to the audience, which I appreciated.

Safe and Sound
Playwright: Ben Crowder
Director: Brian Ramos
Asst. Director: Anna Ellsworth
Actors: Maelyn Gándola (Abbie), Parker Wilkinson (Dave)

Synopis: Dave, recently home from his mission, visits his friend Abbie and discovers that her activities over the last two years have become increasingly, well, unorthodox. She talks about her theories regarding the City of Enoch and the lost 10 tribes of Israel, and confesses to recently have discovered the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon on eBay!

Comments: This was very good. I laughed aloud more than twice. Ben Crowder is getting better as a playwright, and Maelyn Gándola did the script justice. The plot was tighter than some other of Ben’s pieces, allowing the interaction between the characters to be the focal point, which for me works best in plays of shorter length. But then, I tend to be more interested in character development than plot development in general.

One of the fun things about this particular play was the almost science fiction turn that it took once Abbie started talking about all of her wild theories. Ben Crowder let his imagination wander to all kinds of bizarre National Treasure-like conspiracies (what exactly was Abbie planning to do with a map of the Granite Mountain record vault?), with very entertaining results. The conspiracy/science fiction elements of this play reminded me of some of the modern Mormon “last days” fiction currently being written by such authors as Wendie Edwards, Linda Paulson Adams, Jessica Draper, Chad Daybell, Stephanie Black, and Greg West (I should in full disclosure mention that I haven’t yet read any of these authors), only Ben uses these elements satirically rather than seriously.

Up Deer Creek
Playwright: Melissa Leilani Larson
Director: Rachel Herrick
Costumes: Bethany Merkling
Actors: Devin Malone (Simon), Sarah Nasson (Anna)

Synopsis: A young mother tries to convince her husband that they should keep their new-born baby, who has some developmental problems, rather than leaving her at the hospital as they’ve been advised.

Comments: This play was short and sweet but explored a difficult issue and, of all the plays, was the only one that took place in an earlier time period. While I wouldn’t say there was anything explicitly Mormon about this work, it tapped into general Christian values of compassion and caring for the sick and afflicted—in this case a disabled baby—that is a situation which, judging from those “Latter-Day Saint Voices” articles at the end of the Ensign, a lot of Mormons have found themselves in. I thought that Melissa Leilani Larson did a good job of imagining what this kind of decision would be like for a young married couple at a time when people were generally less knowledgeable about developmental disorders.

The Wait is Over
Playwright: Arisael Rivera
Director: Alan Bahr
Asst. Director: Jeff Moffat
Actors: Sam Nelson (Robert), Jeff Moffat (Robert’s voice)

Synopsis: A man named Robert sits on a bench outside the temple, having an inner dialogue where he tries to convince himself that he really is worthy to visit the temple for the first time after having lost the privilege.

Comments: This play was really lovely. Next to “Prodigal Son,” it was my favorite of the set. The thoughts that went through Robert’s head were believable, and at times even humorous. Robert ponders his own worthiness, sometimes addressing himself, and sometimes addressing Heavenly Father, trying to gather courage to enter the temple. At one particularly humorous moment, Robert decides to open his scriptures at random in an attempt to gain inspiration and comfort—only to turn unnervingly to a verse about “utter destruction,” no doubt in the war chapters of Alma. Anyone who has tried this with the Book of Mormon has probably had a nearly identical experience.

What could be a touchy subject was dealt with very respectfully, much like “Hope of Israel,” Rivera’s other play in this set. Rivera doesn’t go into why Robert lost his temple privileges to begin with, because in this narrative, it’s not important. The important moment is the moment of struggle that Rivera has imagined: Robert has the institutional Church’s sanction to attend the temple again, but that’s not enough. Having official approval to attend the temple doesn’t erase Robert’s feelings of unworthiness, and neither is official approval exactly the same thing as God’s approval. Robert has to feel it directly from God. In a way, it’s a recasting of a tension that Mormons are often preoccupied with—how to negotiate the principle of personal revelation and the principle of obeying counsel from Church leaders. These factors involved in Robert’s struggle made this play very Mormon, yet the character was drawn in a way that would make his struggle understandable to a non-Mormon audience, which is why I thought it a strong piece.

Book of Mormon Story
Playwright: James Goldberg
Director: Jana Lee Stubbs
Asst. Director: Sara Forsyth
Actors: Jane Barlow (Sis. Griffeth), Christina Phillips (Sis. Nielsen), C. Adam Stallard (Carter), Asenath Rallison (Lindy), Wyatt Felt (Tim)

Synopsis: Two sister missionaries on the first day of a transfer go to teach a discussion to a man who relates to the Book of Mormon in a rather strange way: King Noah was a coke fiend?

Comments: The premise of this play was quite good: we all relate to tenants of the Gospel based on our own experiences. That’s the beauty of the Gospel—it’s universal. What was a bit peculiar was that in the context of this play, the protagonist, Carter, goes one step further than relating to stories in the Book of Mormon—he re-interprets them for the sister missionaries based on his own experience, constructing a new story of the Abinadi/King Noah/Alma episode where King Noah is addicted to cocaine. The implication being that Carter has struggled with drug addiction.

Carter continues to use Book of Mormon narratives and imagery throughout the scene to first indirectly and then more directly express his own struggles. He says that he thinks the illustrations in the Church’s published version of the Book of Mormon are all wrong—that they aren’t “translated correctly.” Take King Noah, for example. In the picture, King Noah is the image of corpulent extravagance, but “sin doesn’t look ugly on the face of it,” he explains. That’s why it’s tempting and deceitful—because people who are sinning look like they’re having the time of their lives. The protagonist continues to describe his own struggles in the context of Book of Mormon imagery, saying, “I feel like I’ve checked out of the great and spacious building, but I don’t know how to get down.”

I enjoyed the thoughtful discussion that was the focal point of this play. Some of the critiques of Mormon cultural quirks (e.g. Mormons portraying sin as aesthetically as well as morally unappealing) just narrowly escaped giving this play a message-driven rather than a story-driven bent. But Adam Stallard lent earnestness to the character that was appealing and made some of the more message-y elements work. And the bit at the end with the Goth boyfriend whose aunt “turned Mormon” last year and is super excited to see the sister missionaries was just really great. Well played, that.

December Roses
Playwright: Elizabeth Harris
Director: Dick Merkling
Asst. Director: Dean Gibbons
Actors: Katrina Southwick (Kate), LoriAnn Caldwell (Celeste), Ted Lee (John)

Synopsis: Having just lost her fiancé, Kate travels to Paris with her sister Celeste on what was supposed to be Kate’s honeymoon tour. The evening after arriving in Paris, Kate sits on a bench in front of the Eiffel Tower feeling not-so-great, when a teenager with a camera strikes up a discussion with her. They end up in a debate about what kind of backdrop is best for taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower—a cloudy sky or a clear sky.

Comments: The message of this particular play seemed to be this: if you believe in God, all of the struggles of life add up to something ultimately beautiful and redeeming. With an eternal perspective, the cloudy days are just as important as the clear days (i.e. trials are important to spiritual growth) and thus have their own beauty when viewed from this perspective. This message was brought about in the debate mentioned—the teenaged John explains that the best pictures of the Eiffel Tower have clouds in them, whereas Kate argues that a clear sky is better. It’s an understandable perspective. Kate’s fiancé just died, after all, and she doesn’t have a strong belief in God. With that kind of perspective, painful experiences can seem meaningless.

At first I felt like the situation portrayed in the play was rather unrealistic. What kind of teenaged kid goes out of his way to try to comfort a strange woman sitting by herself on a park bench in Paris? I kept thinking, “This kid has gotta be from Idaho. No one else would be that nice.” And then, to have the discussion develop into a kind of allegory about seeing things with a spiritual perspective was very nearly a bit much. But again, as in “Book of Mormon Story,” the earnestness of the actors and the interesting development of their interaction drew me into the story in spite of myself. By the end of it, my disbelief was duly suspended, and I was genuinely touched.

Prodigal Son
Playwright: James Goldberg
Director: Katherine Gee
Asst. Director: Ben Crowder
Actors: Dave Dixon (Son), Katherine Way (Girlfriend), James Goldberg (Dad)

Synopsis: A son becomes increasingly interested in Mormonism, much to the disapproval of his father, who joined the Church some years ago and then lost his faith.

Comments: This play was really, really excellent and thus deserves its own post. Which I plan on writing once I’ve purchased the script and read through it. Which brings me to this item of news: New Play Project is selling scripts of some of their selected productions for $10. While the binding isn’t top quality, it’s a decent product, especially considering that the proceeds go to helping support NPP’s future productions. A worthwhile investment, I must say.