In an empty church, altar boy Michael (Ivan Howe) is confronted by a mysterious interloper (Stanley Simons) at the beginning of the Atlantic Theater Company presentation of Bubba Weiler’s The Saviors.
Well, I’ll Let You Go, Bubba Weiler’s drama of grief and Midwestern angst, opened Off-Broadway a year ago this month, elevating the author from yeoman actor to one of New York’s most prominent emerging playwrights. The Saviors, Weiler’s second play (now at the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater) substantiates his promise, extending and arguably deepening his collaboration with director Jack Serio.
Altar boys Michael and Paul (Julius Rinzel) clown around in the empty sanctuary after Mass.
The Saviors takes place in a Roman Catholic church in a sleepy Midwestern town. The dreary sanctuary is deserted after early-morning Mass, though there’s activity in the adjacent sacristy. The priest and parishioners are gone, and two altar boys—Michael (Ivan Howe), age 13, and Paul (Julius Rinzel), 14—are packing away the implements of worship before locking up the premises. Freed of adult supervision, the boys can’t resist enlivening their duties with horseplay.
The two are longtime buddies, but cracks in their rapport indicate the relationship (which may owe more to proximity than affinity) is wearing thin. These are small-town kids with a limited candidate-pool for friendship. Puberty is exacerbating their differences. Michael is pious, controlling, and straining to conceal his crush on Paul. Paul, who’s skeptical about religion, is increasingly occupied with typical, all-American boy pastimes. Each is reluctant to broach the third-rail issue of their growing incompatibility.
Paul: I don’t believe in God any more. …
Michael: Whoa. … Why?
Paul: I just don’t. …
Michael: You’re just going through a time of doubt which is like, totally normal. … Like you’ll probably believe in God tomorrow.
The play’s initial exposition—two innocents in an empty, isolated church, unmindful of their vulnerability—suggests the audience is in for a small-town horror story or docudrama about rural crime. A snowstorm is approaching outside; adolescent sexual tensions are seething within. And a ragged interloper (Stanley Simons) enters unannounced. This stranger, considerably older than the boys, is burly and brusque; he’s masked and capped, as though to conceal his identity. A filthy, bulging backpack marks him as a drifter.
“Weiler’s dramaturgy is all about misdirection and surprise. ”
Weiler’s dramaturgy is all about misdirection and surprise. His compact plays are propelled by astonishing revelations, artfully disclosed like nested matryoshka dolls. The narrative zigs and zags are sometimes bewildering but always credible. What really matters are the vividly imagined characters, who can keep spectators nail-bitingly engaged for 90 minutes. This is bracing theater, but a challenge for reviewers, since the revelations should be experienced in performance, not spilled by critics.
Besides the boys, The Saviors includes two adult characters—the intruder, whose name is Julian, and Judy (Crystal Finn), one of the parish’s stalwarts. The adults aren’t on stage together until scene 7 (of nine). That seventh scene is especially taut, psychologically deft, and unnervingly suspenseful. It’s distinct enough from the preceding and subsequent scenes that it feels like a separate one-act play (at least, until later when, upon reflection, its integral nature comes into focus). That scene is a gift to Finn and Simons, who play it with intensity and notable depth. It packs a wallop that smarts well beyond the final curtain. Like every scene in the play, it’s fraught with longing, regret, and fear; and it’s a testament to Weiler’s grasp of human nature, its perversity, and our species’ yearning for love, both mortal and divine.
Under Serio’s direction, the four actors are a compelling, well-balanced ensemble. Howe and Rinzel, though young, have sufficient professional experience to hold their own in the company of their elders. Both boys achieve a convincing mix of spontaneity and adolescent ungainliness, with Howe capturing the discomfiture of sexual awakening and Rinzel the exaggerated nonchalance of a nascent he-man.
Paul and the stranger become acquainted in Weiler’s play at the Atlantic Theater Company. Photographs by Emilio Madrid.
Though Weiler and Serio have been working hand in glove for a considerable time, the degree of the director’s influence on the final script is unclear. From the dark side of the footlights, it’s easy to imagine the two could be an advantageously combustible partnership akin to Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan or Edward Albee and Alan Schneider. Safer, at this point, to say Serio profoundly understands Weiler’s material, and his actors and designers serve the script to a fare-the-well.
Scenic designer David Zinn’s nondescript church sanctuary, with its near colorlessness, regulation statuary, and soulless exit sign, is spiritually deflating. It’s precisely the environment in which Weiler’s prairie-region Catholics belong. Stacey Derosier’s lighting enhances the script’s foreboding and unease; she and sound designer Leah Gelpe conjure a sense of harsh, wintry conditions symbolic of the characters’ bleak lives.
A year ago, theater aficionados were wondering what the author of Well, I’ll Let You Go would be doing next. Now the speculation’s about the future of team Weiler and Serio.
The Saviors, presented by Atlantic Theater Company, plays through Aug. 15 at the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Thater (336 W. 20th St.). Evening performances are 7 p.m. Monday through Sunday; matinees, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, visit atlantictheater.org.
Playwright: Bubba Weiler
Direction: Jack Serio
Scenic Design: David Zinn
Costume Design: Avery Reed
Lighting Design: Stacey Derosier
Sound Design: Leah Gelpe
