Man of God is billed as a funny feminist revenge thriller and holds to that premise for almost the entirety of the play. Award-winning writer Anna Ouyang Moench has an incisive perspective on dialogue, represented here by four teenage Korean missionaries stuck in a Bangkok hotel room with a big decision to make after finding a hidden spy cam in their bathroom. But a befuddling finale reverses all that came before and left me unfulfilled.
A dark comedy about sexual power dynamics unfolds as one by one, the girls, some naïve, another a foul-mouthed badass, will own their power when they decide to act against their formally trusted Pastor who planted the bug. Each of the girls has been affronted by a male in one way or another, either through salacious ogling or outright molestation and rape.
Through dark comic fantasy sequences, three of the girls imagine offing the Pastor - a mafia rubout, a kidney removal torture scene, and a kung fu battle straight out of Kurosawa. The girls unite in a decision to off the Pastor with a juice spiked with Xanax. The direction, given the small space of the hotel room, is well staged by Director Michelle Talgarow. The four outstanding actors (Joyce Domanico-Huh, Lauren Garcia, Alexandra Lee, and Sharon Shao) spin gold with Moench's smart and authentic dialogue.
If the play had maintained the feminist realizations the girls experience, it would have been a satisfying effort. Instead, the girls are intimidated by the Pastor, who represents all male authority figures, and fall silent into submission. The script calls for an exceedingly long suitcase packing sequence with the imposing Pastor looking on. And it was long and for me, unnecessary. A small redeeming feature comes with the final line in which Kyung-Hwa, a serious Jesus devotee and last to turn against the Pastor, retorts to his comment of her being a "very sweet girl". She snaps back "I'll work on that," giving a glimpse of future action.
Man of God runs through October 2nd, 2022. Call 510.841.6500 or www.shotgunplayers.org for tickets.
Photo credit: Benjamin Krantz
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