100 Saints You Should Know: Faith Healing

You may raise an eyebrow over an unbelievable moment or two in Kate Fodor's 100 Saints You Should Know, but perhaps you can just consider them to be tests of faith.  Having faith, losing it and trying to understand it are the key issues in this warm, funny and engrossing play, blessed with an exceptional cast in director Ethan McSweeny's moving production.

It begins innocuously enough, with an awkward bathroom encounter between Father Matthew (Jeremy Shamos) and Theresa (Janel Moloney), the atheist who cleans his rectory.  A single mom struggling to pay the bills, Theresa's relationship with her belligerent and foul-mouthed teenage daughter, Abby (Zoe Kazan), isn't much of a comfort.  Things are no less awkward between Mathew and his overly protective but emotionally distant mother, Colleen (Lois Smith).

When Matthew arrives at his mother's door, he says it's just for a vacation, but we gradually learn the real circumstances behind his sudden absence from the church.  Theresa, who seems to be losing her lack of faith, seeks out Matthew for advice.  She's taken her daughter along for the drive to Colleen's but has left her outside to entertain herself.  When Abby starts having fun with the sweet but emotionally stunted delivery boy Garrett (Will Rogers), her little game with him turns disastrous and forces the characters to bring out bottled up emotions.

Not much more can be revealed without giving away a plot point or two best discovered in performance, but the beauty of the play lies more in Fodor's well-crafted scenes which paint vibrant relationships between the characters, particularly between the priest and his mother.  Shamos' Matthew is almost boyish in his meek and quiet manner, but there's a stability behind him that gradually emerges to the forefront.  Smith, one of New York theatre's treasures, is a perfect antagonist as the mother who smothers with superficial affection without really trying to understand her son.

The relationship between Theresa and Abby contains more humor and is somewhat less believable, with the too cleverly written teenage daughter getting away with saying things that might be considered emotional abuse if she weren't legally a child.  Still, Kazan manages to let her character's shielded pain seep through nicely, while Moloney's energetic frustration is spot on as the woman desperate to be a good mother but having no idea how to start.  In his less developed role, Will Rogers is sympathetic and convincing.

Rachel Hauck's set pieces are revealed behind tall sky-colored panels with a graceful gold tree at the center.  Lit by Jane Cox, the visuals are soothing as compared to the inner turmoil of the characters, suggesting that the tranquility one might seek through the church may be found all around us.

Photos by Joan Marcus:  top: Jeremy Shamos and Janel Moloney; Bottom:  Zoe Kazan and Will Rogers

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