Review: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD at Theatre Artists Studio

Some plays sneak up on you with plot twists. Scott Carter’s THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD explodes with ideas. Imagine stumbling into a late-night salon where three legendary minds are locked in a room that looks like eternity’s waiting lounge. No exit, no small talk, just one challenge: defend the gospel as each of them has interpreted it before they can move on. What unfolds here is more than a clever intellectual sparring match; it is the opening gambit to what emerges as a series of personally unsettling revelations. The discord lies not only in their heated clash of philosophies but in the cracks where their sharp ideals meet the messy failings of their own lives.

Carter’s script lets the arguments reveal the men themselves. Jefferson, the Enlightenment deist, preaches reason while dodging his own hypocrisies. Dickens, the Victorian novelist and social critic, trumpets Christian charity but can’t quite hide his vanity. Tolstoy, the Russian mystic and reformer, thunders about moral purity while wrestling with the compromises of his own life. Put these three around the same table and you don’t get polite conversation; you get sparks, contradictions, and a good deal of ego.

Theatre Artists Studio’s production leans into both the heady dialogue and the human vulnerability beneath it. Humor infuses the play – Dickens’s bluster, Jefferson’s pomposity, Tolstoy’s ascetic severity – even as it probes questions at the core of faith: What is the essence of Jesus’s teaching? Is the gospel a story of divinity, morality, social justice, or love? Whose version is correct?

Director Beau Heckman keeps the pace brisk without letting the words turn into a lecture. J. Kevin Tallent imbues Jefferson with a patrician edge, seasoned liberally with arrogance. David Lorello’s Dickens bubbles with exuberance – a flamboyant man who can’t help playing to an invisible crowd. Ben Rojek’s Tolstoy is brooding and intense, delivering lines that challenge his fellow travelers to think and live differently. They form a combustible trio whose collisions are as entertaining as they are illuminating.

Mark Baris’s minimalist set feels like a room that exists outside of time – half waiting room, half courtroom – while Angee Lewandowski’s historically rooted costumes tether each man to his century even as their arguments reach beyond it.

You don’t need a theology degree to feel the pull of these debates. DISCORD speaks to anyone who’s ever dealt with the uneasy gap between what they preach and how they live or wrestled with questions of faith, morality, and meaning…questions that remain as vital today as in Jefferson’s Virginia, Dickens’s London, or Tolstoy’s Russia. By the final blackout, you may find yourself less interested in who “wins” than in how fiercely we all defend our own edited versions of truth.

The production runs through September 28th at Theatre Artists Studio -- https://www.thestudiophx.org/ -- 4848 E Cactus Rd #406, Scottsdale, AZ -- 602-765-0120

Photo credit to Mark Gluckman – L to R: J. Kevin Tallent, Ben Rojek, David Lorello