Review of A Case for the Existence of God, a play by Samuel D. Hunter

 

A Case For the Existence of God

Review of A Case for the Existence of God, a play by Samuel D. Hunter

Calderwood Pavilion through February 17, 2024

By Andy Hoffman

If you can, catch A Case for the Existence of God at Calderwood Pavilion, a production of the Speakeasy Stage. The two-person play by MacArthur Award winner Samuel D. Hunter hardly ever mentions God or God’s possible existence, but it does explore the birth and growth of male friendship, about which we have so few stories. Masterfully directed in a confined space by Melinda Lopez, A Case for the Existence of God delivers a surprising gut-punch as two men begin to build the foundation of a friendship.

Set in Twin Falls, Idaho, Keith and Ryan meet to discuss a mortgage. Keith – Black and gay in a community that embraces neither identity – is a mortgage broker. The son of a well-to-do lawyer. Keith does his job with efficient responsibility. He studied English and early music in college, but found no paying call for his passions, so he helps arrange loans for people buying property. Ryan needs such help: he wants to acquire some land near town, land that once belonged to his family. Ryan’s family, though, has a long and convoluted history of mental illness and drug abuse, so his anxiety over the deal leads him into uncertainty and confusion as Keith explains the mortgage process. Keith loses his patience and tells Ryan “You either play by the rules and pretend it all means something, or you don’t get anything. That’s most of what being an adult is.” 

The two men met at the day-care center their daughters attend. When the play begins, the girls are a bit over a year old, and the men are in their thirties. They both grew up in Twin Falls and it later emerges that Keith remembers Ryan from high school; he was a popular kid with no time or interest in a nerdy, gay, Black classmate. Having met again all these years later, they find common ground as fathers. Fatherhood has pressured Ryan into this land-ownership adventure: divorce looms for Ryan and his wife, and he realizes that he needs a more stable living situation if he hopes to maintain any custody right over Christa, his daughter. Keith also feels uncertain about his ties to daughter Willa. After years of unsuccessfully trying to adopt, Keith chooses to foster the infant daughter of a addict mother, with the ambition of eventually becoming the baby’s legal parent. Both men live on hope, but they live in a world short on deliverance. The play’s case for the existence of God depends on the realization of hope, but humans have limited vision into the workings of the divine.

The performance reveals the story over a period of months, as each man’s hopes encounter trouble. As their hopes fade and grow, so does the newborn friendship between them. Lighting changes signify movement from scene to scene. Most of the action takes place in Keith’s cubicle at work, but as their friendship grows the stage becomes first Keith’s home and then Ryan’s, a playground for the toddler girls and even the wide-open land Ryan wants to acquire. The audience follows the relationship as it transitions from the powder-keg of a mortgage broker’s office to the brightly lit Idaho landscape. A Case for the Existence of God both reveals and revels in the growth from the immediate and transactional first breath of friendship to the life-long and transcendent maturity of this bond. The final scene of the play takes us into a hopeful future, but I will allow you to experience that joy for yourself.

De’Lon Grant mesmerizes as the uptight Keith. You feel Keith’s hemmed in life, from the cubicle at work to his tenuous position with Willa. As he notes, Twin Falls does not have many romantic opportunities for him. He depends on the emotional support of his father, whom he mentions frequently. Grant portrays a man in need of the friendship he cultivates with Ryan despite the differences back in high school. Jesse Hinson embraces Ryan to such a degree that I felt worried for his mental stability and his resistance to his dead parents’ addictions. He feels victimized by the world and the lines on his face reveal a map of uncertainty as he negotiates adulthood dreadfully short on the personal resources he needs. I only realized the brilliance of his performance when he and his co-star came out for their applause and the lines on his face disappeared. 

Samuel D. Hunter has created a brilliant script that neatly slides from the pedestrian to the angelic. Best known for The Whale, the film version of which netted Brenden Fraser an Oscar for lead actor, Hunter’s script casually and captivatingly engages the audience in its difficult subjects with beauty, ease, and love. I hope you get to feel the wings of uplift he provides in A Case for the Existence of God.