Review: A GREAT WILDERNESS at the Matrix

"Great" may actually be too slight a word to characterize the wilderness referenced in the title of Samuel D. Hunter's play. We're talking about an unending stretch of greenery in the rugged mountains of Idaho, certainly, but also on a less literal level, about the expanse of one man's well-intentioned- if misguided - existence. A person could get seriously lost - both in the mountains of the Gem State and in the aftereffects of one's own choices - and never find his way back. In A GREAT WILDERNESS, a man could, and does.

Hunter, a playwright who is apt to explore compassion over judgment, knows the peril of losing one's way all too well. In Walt, who has devoted his life to steering young men away from homosexuality, Hunter presents a man who has reached his day of reckoning. And that realization, as proffered by John Perrin Flynn who plays Walt in Rogue Machine Theatre Company's production of A GREAT WILDERNESS at the Matrix Theatre, is a thing of quiet and heartbreaking beauty. Hunter's plays are so deeply insightful, so keenly rendered. Rogue Machine has produced several of the author's works and in WILDERNESS, director Elina de Santos, knows exactly which gears to pull.

The topic of gay conversion therapy within a contemporary play is potentially the straw-iest of straw men, but this play is not a takedown. The retreat run by Walt, his ex-wife Abby and her husband, Tim, deep in the woods of Idaho, is probably on its last legs. Walt has been convinced, reluctantly, to move to a retirement home in the belief that Tim and Abby will take over the operation of the retreat. As the play opens, Walt is carefully welcoming his last client, a young man named Daniel, whose parents sent him to Walt as a last resort after they caught him looking at gay pornography. Despite the older man's Christian mindset and non-pushy demeanor, a deeply distrustful Daniel (played by Jeffrey Deflin) will barely allow Walt to even make him a sandwich.

The play is set in the present, but the woodsy and homespun cabin interior created by scenic designer Bruce Goodrich practically reeks of another time. It's from this location that Walt and the clients he calls "my boys" talk, read scriptures and go on hikes. A rotary phone (cell service is spotty here) plays a key role, as does an oversize copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, along with a magnifying glass. Walt loves words.

Although he insists otherwise, Walt is slipping - physically and mentally while also facing the breakdown of his beliefs. The tipping point arrives when Daniel disappears into the wilderness. This is followed immediately by the arrival of Tim (Tony Pasqualini), Abby (Rachel Sorsa), and Daniel's mother, Eunice (Jacquelin Lorraine Schofield). Daniel's farewell text, "I'm gone," throws everyone into a panic, especially after the discovery of his blood-spattered jacket and reports of a massive fire. The woods are burning, indeed, and in more ways than one.

As the hunt for Daniel intensifies, Walt stays put in his cabin, hopefully awaiting the boy's return. During his interactions with Abby, Tim and Eunice, he confronts the choices of his past and those still available to him. Plain-spoken and the decidedly non-woke Abby is nursing some past hurts of her own. Tim, navigating the space between his wife and his partner, at one point gives Walt news of a former client who grew up to lead a Christian and non-gay life. That report, no matter how small, that Walt's work produced actual results is something. How much of a something is up for debate.

The casting is solid. Caroming as they do off Walt during his crisis of faith, Delfin's raw and vulnerable Daniel and Schofield's conflicted Eunice beautifully anchor the production while Tania Verafield supplies some choice levity as a park ranger.

Ultimately, it is Flynn (the company's founding artistic director) who gives A GREAT WILDERNESS its beating heart. Playing a character who is simultaneously an Open Window to his clients and a broken man who can't come to terms with his own identity, Flynn offers up a man who is good will personified. Alas, as Hunter demonstrates, that may not be enough.

A GREAT WILDERNESS plays through Oct. 31 at he Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Photo of Jacquelin Lorraine Schofield and John Perrin Flyn by Alex Neher

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