Sometimes, a brand-new work of art arrives on the scene—in this case a play–-and there are moments when such an event turns out to be Just what the Doctor Ordered–-one more way to assist in the healing of a Nation Hard at War with itself and badly in Need of Reckoning.
And so it is deliciously ironic that the play in question, Dominion –-now onstage at Footlights Theatre in Falmouth through March 30— has been penned by well-known Maine playwright and primary care physician Hal J. Cohen.
It’s also a fine opportunity for me as a reviewer to write words of praise for Footlights Founder, Actor, and Artistic Director Michael J. Tobin—the Director of this production—for bringing yet another culturally relevant, no-holds-barred play to the Pine Tree State.
Tobin stages—and often writes—a great many hilarious, endearingly vaudevillian comedies to Falmouth, and we’re thankful for them. But unlike so many of the more obsessively cautious, box office-conscious producers across the country, he is never timid about inviting controversy to the stage when it serves the Common Good.
As I see it, Cohen, a resourceful, highly imaginative playwright, really puts the screws to this country’s Radical Religious Right in this production, and does it with consummate skill, insight, compassion, sensitivity, and full-throttle artistry.
Cohen’s play, set in “a small Midwest town in the year 2012,” dishes up an off-the-beaten-path version of Jesus—played with truly impressive skill by the handsome, remarkably Jesus-like Sean Farrelly—that you’re not going to find in churches of any denomination, pretty much anywhere in the Land of the Free. Why? Because this Jesus is unabashedly human and disarmingly colorful. And when he needs to be, he’s also engagingly sly. So watch him closely as he goes about his craft, because when he’s not being combative in His relentless pursuit of the Truth, he’s downright funny. Now that, my friends, is my kind of Jesus! I mean, how many Jesuses do you know who can make you burst out laughing while pretending to be up there on the Cross? Needless to say, he’s a thorn in the back of the “minister” who hired him to play the role of the Chosen One in his alleged “theater.”
For audiences always eager to see a feisty, hyper-intelligent, modern-day women in a plum role, you’re in for a treat! Victoria Machado, in the role of freelance writer and sometimes reporter Miriam, pulls out all the stops as an actor in a role as emotionally complex and physically demanding as this one is.
Local writer/actor Zack Handlen puts in a rigorous, multilayered, heart-of-the-plot performance in the role of The Minister, playing the perfect foil to Miriam. Together, Handlen and Machado produce enough thespian energy to propel a pleasure craft across the full length of Casco Bay and back again.
Actor and award-winning playwright Justine Weisinger, in the role of Ruth, handles an emotionally draining assignment with great skill, providing us with a painful look into the psyche of a woman hurt deeply by what she considers the unforgivable hypocrisy of Jesus—the very Sacred Figure she’d always turned to for spiritual guidance until tragedy, at the hands of a religious cult that made unkept promises, and because of them stole her ailing mother from her.
In the role of the Man in the Shadows, Daniel Rennie, who’s appeared on many stages in the Western Foothills region of Maine, delivers a wonderfully unpretentious performance as a jack-of-all-trades janitor who does everything from mopping the floors to building a whopper of a cross for the minister’ stage set. But his role in Dominion is much more significant than that. In fact, his home-spun philosophizing repeatedly outshines the shameful quackery of the man who claims to be a minister but is anything but. (And as you’ll learn, Rennie happens also to be a good, solid guitar player with a warm-hearted delivery as a singer.)
As I write this review, Americans are at yet another monumental turning point in the matter of religion, among other urgent issues. Dominion wrestles, in delightfully imaginative ways, with questions whose answers are both inherently controversial and maddeningly elusive.
The two friendly, talkative women sitting to the immediate left of me appear to have attended Opening Night for the same reason I did: to learn just how a playwright would choose to handle a hot-button issue like Far Right Wing religion and its ham-fisted encroachment on Local, State & Federal Government. Will he preach to us, entertain us, or teach us worthwhile lessons in spirituality? they must have wondered. I know I did, and for the record, I was more than pleasantly surprised at the fairness of his treatment.
Among the lingering issues is the question, Are we a democracy, a theocracy, an atheocracy, or some inexplicable, unworkable combination of the three? That seems to be the multi-layered Question of The Moment right now, from coast to coast in America’s churches, kitchens, workplaces, street corners, and indeed the very Halls of Government.
Even worse, there are growing numbers of voters—angry, indignant, and obnoxiously self-righteous—who clearly aren’t satisfied with any of the choices. What they’re shooting for, they seem to be saying, is what they consider to be a more “pure” form of politics: to wit, a Strong-Man, I’m-the-Boss, Do-it-My Way value system incompatible with religion and yet a religion unto itself. Make no mistake about it: we’re talking, here, of a chest-thumping, self-serving, in-your-face religious Autocracy with a Capital A. The power of Cohen’s play comes in part from its fearless, unapologetic handling of a very difficult subject.
With this superbly conceived and configured play, Dominion, actor/playwright/physician Hal J. Cohen has shown us he has the courage and intellectual integrity to bring his own hard-won convictions onto the stage and into the Greater Portland community. And from this play we can learn tolerance, grace, and an even greater insight into what ails a country trying, in all sincerity, to find its footing again.
- Ross Alan Bachelder, 3/15/24
PS: Should any of you happen to wonder what hard-won values are at the very core of this reviewer’s thinking, you may go to www.artsaplenty.me, scan the menu bar, and click on “What I Stand For.” I’ll be happy to share my convictions with you. -- RB
Performances at Footlights Theatre, 190 Route One, Falmouth—just five minutes from downtown Portland—are as follows: Thursdays 7:00pm, Fridays 7:30pm, Saturdays 2:00pm & 7:30pm. All tickets $20.00. To Reserve tickets, call (207)747-5434, 24/7. Be sure to leave your name, phone number, and the number of tickets you need.