Photograph by Steve Krieckhaus
I hate to fall back on the weather as a go-to opening schtick—indeed, my readers by now should know how I eschew schtick. (A longtime schtick-eschewer, I.) But I think I can be forgiven for having rain on the brain of late, and the volumes thereof to which we have been treated these past weeks have been nothing short of biblical, no? Now, I'm not religious, though I was raised by an Episcopal priest. Neither, though, am I a reactionary “recovering” anything. Simply, my Dad's vocation and knowledge led me to a keen interest in all theologies from a cultural and anthropological point of view, and thus I've always been drawn to art which explores themes of faith and spirit. Especially those which illustrate such themes without pretending to deliver any answers. In 1979, John Pielmeier penned a play which would become one of the late 20th century's touchstones for the artistic address of religion and faith, Agnes of God. Avalon Theatre Company opened their sharp,effective production of this piece last Thursday at their Crestwood Court space; it runs through Sunday.
The play, whose title is a pun on the Latin Agnus Dei, or “lamb of God,” surrounds events at a convent, where the lifeless body of a newborn has been found in the cell of a novice, Sister Agnes (Sabra Sellers), in the wastebasket. The court has appointed a psychiatrist, Doctor Livingstone (Erin Kelley), to assess Agnes's fitness to stand trial for manslaughter. Running interference as Agnes's protector is the head of the convent, Mother Miriam Ruth (Linda Kennedy). These three carry the entirety of the drama. Agnes professes ignorance of even the process of procreation, much less her own pregnancy—she allows none of it in her world. Dr. Livingstone is a staunch ex-Catholic (which now may feel cliché, but in 1979 had not become the ho-hum trope it might seem thirty-plus years on), with specific anger toward nuns and convents, having lost a sister whose convent protectors denied her medical care. Mother Miriam sees the divine in Agnes, and will protect the purity of her charge with the ferocity and single-mindedness of a blood-mother, she herself having lost the love of her own children in a life before the cloister. The power struggle between Doctor and Mother provides the meat of the drama, as the sophisticated nun confounds the prejudices of the clinical academic with the wounded soul. Meanwhile, the Doctor knows the Mother is actively hiding the factual truth to suit her preferred, divine romantic truth. Poor naïve and damaged Agnes wrestles with trying to please both women, not to mention God and her own dead mother.
At the helm of Avalon's production is the company's Associate Artistic Director, John Contini, who also designed the set, which is where I'd like to start. The action in Agnes alternates between the offices of Dr. Livingstone and Mother Miriam, in flashback, interspersed with the Doctor's to-house monologues. Simplicity is key when character is paramount, and Contini's set is a study in effective simplicity yielding needed clarity. The back wall of the stage is divided in threes (three principle characters, the divine Trinity); two flanking surfaces painted office beige divided by a panel of grey simulated stonework.Three vertical bands, like a sideways Rothko. The beige side-spaces are the offices of the Mother and Doctor; the center, backset panel represents the cloister; and each has a single light—each office a sconce and on the stone wall a rose window. After the Doctor delivers a monologue, light rises on one side or another to indicate in whose office action will occur. Agnes enters from the Doctor's office side when the business is there, from the opposite side or the cloister wall when Mother's office is used. Each power player has a chair, with the one at center stage reserved for Agnes, the flag on the rope in this tug-of-war. This is perfect set design, for it concentrates focus where it belongs, on the characters, developing a subtle language of cues to the audience. We never wonder where we are.
As for how Contini directs in this space, note that he is also an accomplished actor, who understands the balancing act of blocking. The physical tension within his staging illustrates the scripted tensions between Doctor and Mother. Like adding weights to one or the other side of a scale, as soon as power and weight seems tipped to one player, she physically counterbalances. It is dancelike.
The first voice we hear belongs to Sabra Sellers as Agnes, singing in a mellifluous soprano that is quite splendid. Good thing, too, as it is rather crucial to Pielmeier's text that it be so. In this voice, which Agnes disavows as her own, but says comes through her, Mother first senses the presence of the divine. Sellers's BFA is in musical theater, and though that isn't always a guarantee of vocal gifts, Sabra's got pipes. While the script suggests that Agnes might be perceived as, oh, “tetched” if not bonkers, and while many have played her as not quite fully in residence of her tree, this is not Sellers's approach. The Agnes we meet early on is an innocent, a naïve. After all, we're dealing with an unschooled girl of 21, who's been cloistered since 17. She's not in touch with the same reality as those around her, but her reality is quite simply a matter of fact to her. While initially closed off to certain lines of the Doctor's questioning, she's eager to please, and thus endears herself to Livingstone as a surrogate for her own lost sister. This ingenuous outward show feels real as a construction of Agnes's complete denial, and renders all the more shocking the horrific torrent of emotion unleashed by the Doctor's later hypnosis. Only after the dam breaks does Sellers take her characterization to a place of psychotic break, and it's appropriate and heartbreaking when she does. This is a very good Agnes.
As Doctor Livingstone, Erin Kelley establishes a flinty self-assurance, her certainty of science and humanism worn as an armor. Though she tells us, the audience, of her unpleasant associations with the church and its wimpled representatives, she won't carry that into her assessment of Agnes. At least, that's on paper. We see from Kelley a bit of the inner prejudice right off. I'd like to have seen more facade in her first interactions with Mother, then a reveal of her predisposition, but that's a hair-split. Kelley has quite a barge to tote. Being onstage nearly every second, she must slide from emotional revelation in monologue to stepping back in time to a meeting in an office, and she handles these transitions admirably. Curiously, where I felt perhaps her guard was down too early in dealings with Mother, I wanted a bit more openness in her early interviews with Agnes. While I know she's an agent of the court, her prosecutorial stance makes her emotional bond with the novice seem unfounded. Later, in the first hypnosis, she adopts a warm, loving tone, some of which in earlier scenes might have seemed an avenue for Agnes's trust in her. Again, I'm nit-picking, because as I said, this is a Herculean task of emotion and intellect, and Kelley overall anchors this play. She plays the tension and power struggle with Mother brilliantly, and by the end she is us, having seen miraculous and horrific events unfold and coming away far less sure of what she thought she knew going in.
Linda Kennedy has received positive virtual ink from me before as director of Crumbs From the Table of Joy at MustardSeed Theatre, and she's about to get some more for her performance as Mother Miriam Ruth. Kennedy's characterization is the clearest of the three. As written, she's worldly and savvy, to the surprise and consternation of the Doctor, with an acerbic, cutting wit. I'm going to guess these are characteristics Kennedy herself possesses in some degree, otherwise I have witnessed the finest performance ever presented. No wet blanket could so fully inhabit (I've avoided any “habit” gags thus far, Lord give me strength!) Mother Miriam. It's fun watching Kennedy have fun, and she clearly is. Mother has ascribed the divine and miraculous to Agnes's voice, and if she can just make the investigation go away, a virgin birth feeds that narrative. She wants to believe on faith, but can parry intellectually with the Doctor in arguing the possibility of the inexplicable. Watching the balancing act Kennedy and Kelley pull off is the true joy of this production; the intellectual exercise is nice, but thirty years down the road, it's not really why this play remains crucial.
I've seen writers downplay Agnes of God's importance in this age. What was meaty grist for the theological brain-mill in 1979 doesn't hold up, they say, as we've been over and over these themes. Perhaps. And perhaps there's no need for a Broadway revival, but it seems all the more vital that small companies in small spaces keep staging such work. This play can now be less a showcase for big ideas and questioning institutions, and more a study in tight character work. Give three strong actors three clearly written roles and put them in the hands of a director who can stage them with an economy of movement and pace and what comes out is a damned fine night of theater. That's just what Avalon has done here. Go.
