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The snippety attitude Variety took when it discovered this week that Baylor University was sending performers to New York (in a show that originated at WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival last year) says a lot about contemporary American theater, maybe contemporary American culture in general. (Hey, group prejudices existed even in biblical times. Remember the line to the effect "What good thing could ever come out of Nazareth?'
The really interesting thing is that Baylor seems to be turning out theater artists that take religion very seriously without failing to be cool. In the past, Second Stage Theatre has brought to Out of the Loop some extremely well-written plays by Steven Walters that dealt with issues of faith. And just now I saw a new play by Baylor grad Clay Wheeler (now on staff at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut) that is even more specifically religious in nature.
In Wheeler's Holy Mother of God, best friends Cal (Sky Bennett) and Thommy (Matthew Clark) are both aspiring writers working in a New York coffee shop. We learn that a tragedy they shared affected them in differerent ways. Cal has become closed on and lost his faith, while Thommy sees visions of the Blessed Mother. We see them too, in the person of actress Ginger Goldman (who seems to be making a career lately of playing cool visitors from heaven). Cassie Bann plays Cal's girlfriend, a literary agent.
Amber Jackson, a Baylor MFA candidate, directed the show for Rite of Passage Theatre Company. (The program doesn't make clear whether this is a new entity or has been in existence in Waco.) The playing is amusing and even touching -- not a script that's ready for the big time yet, but extremely promising and unique in its attitudes. The acting is very strong, though the two men seem a tad young in context.
It's interesting, too that these writers coming out of Baylor aren't necessarily Baptist. Holy Mother of God, as the title indicates without irony, deals with Catholics.
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News, reviews, nuggets and tidbits from the local arts scene, including literature, theater, classical music, opera, dance and the visual arts.
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