Just when you thought that Flying Anvil Theatre and director Jayne Morgan had exhausted the supply of plays involving dysfunctional southern families, they have unearthed another gem—this one with more than a little comic bite.
There are so many diverse facets to Robert Askins’ black comedy, Hand To God, that you may leave the theatre a bit bumfuzzled as to what you have just witnessed. There’s a healthy underpinning of teenage rebellion and dysfunctional parenting side-by-side with some delicious religious satire and comically raunchy sex—augmented by some excellent sock puppet artistry. It’s easy to laugh at or be shocked by these individual elements, but sizing up the whole takes a bit more work.
In a prologue framed by a puppet stage, the gravelly-voiced, foul-mouthed puppet Tyrone introduces himself to the audience, presenting his abbreviated history of the world, including mankind’s creation of religion to reward good behavior—and the Devil to blame it on when that doesn’t work.
Premise stated, the lights come up on a church basement in Cypress, Texas, where we are greeted by cloying powder blue cinder block walls sporting brightly optimistic Christian posters. The sickly sweet room is hosting a construction and practice session for a youth puppet ministry, the “Christ-kateers.” Led by the recently-widowed and obviously frustrated Margery (Ashley Guthrie Baker), the group seems to be in a crisis of enthusiasm. Only three teenagers have joined up: Timothy (Andrew Price Carlile), a tall, handsome boy wallowing in teenage badness brought on by out-of-control hormones; Jessica (Mary McGarr), a slightly nerdy, but sweet girl who has an innocent crush on Margery’s son, the supposedly innocent and naive Jason (Keegan Tucker). Jason, though, is feeling uncertainty and pain from many angles, including his father’s death, his mother’s hypocrisy and blind reliance on Christianity as a crutch, and from the repressed sexual urges of a teenage boy.
Jason has constructed the sock puppet Tyrone, a seemingly innocuous combination of red yarn for hair and a striped shirt. However, Tyrone emerges as Jason’s alter-ego supposedly taking over his left arm, even growing teeth as an indicator of his wickedness — as if it could be as simple as that. While Jason speaks with a normal-pitched shyness and reserve, Tyrone is anything but, soon stunning others with gravelly-voiced, profanity-laced tirades, threats, sexual innuendo, satanic cajolery, and even violence. Tyrone claims to be the Devil—or is he just the devil that is in all of us? Tucker, of course, is the source for both characters, creating a beautiful crescendo of Tyrone’s domination, switching back and forth between Jason and Tyrone voices with an incredible and amazing facility. Although Tucker is not a ventriloquist, he has made the Jason/Tyrone dichotomy so successfully distinct that you’d almost swear there were two actors on stage. Wildly deserved kudos, too, go to the show’s puppet designer, Leah Chance.
Adding another angle to Jason’s unhappiness is the church minister, Pastor Greg (Steven Trigg), who has been hitting on his mom with little success to show for it. Baker’s Margery, wound tight, sexually repressed, and anxious for some relief of her own, is reluctant to slam the door in the pastor’s face for fear that he will shut down her basement puppet works. Still, she is having her own crisis of unfulfilled desires, something that Baker reveals with marvelously comic facial expressions and body language. Something has to give, though, and with Pastor Greg not her conservative cup of tea, she turns to a decidedly bad choice—although a tremendously comic one—for sexual release.
Things go from bad to worse for Jason/Tyrone, with Pastor Greg even suggesting an exorcism may be necessary—but Jessica isn’t sure Lutherans know how. Nevertheless, it is Jessica that seems to be the wisest of all. With Jason/Tyrone locked in the basement, she enters through a window offering salvation on her hand—salvation in the form of her own puppet, Jolene, there to tempt Tyrone into a bout of outrageously funny puppet sex that seems to bring a modicum of peace.
But, Tyrone is back for an epilogue, giving us a final chance to enjoy his point of view and take a stab at the playwright’s motives. Is Hand To God about the psychological frustrations of a teenage boy and the equally painful frustrations of his mother? Not really. That would be an easy answer—one we might expect from Pastor Greg. The playwright’s Tyrone seems to be suggesting something much less obvious—that religion and what it does to us personally and as society is, maybe, the true root of all evil.
Robert Askins’ Hand To God, directed by Jayne Morgan, continues at Flying Anvil Theatre, 1300 Rocky Hill Road, through October 27. Tickets and Information
