Ryan (Will Brill) and Keith (Kyle Beltran) find out they have more in common than they think in Signature world premiere (photo by Emilio Madrid)
A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday-Sunday through May 29, $35-$70
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org
Samuel D. Hunter’s brilliantly human A Case for the Existence of God itself makes a strong case for the existence of God. In the first work of his three-play, five-year residency at the Signature, the award-winning Idaho native has written an almost brutally realistic but gentle story of a down-to-earth bromance between two thirtysomethings facing single fatherhood with excitement and apprehension.
The ninety-minute play takes place in a small cubicle open at an angle to the audience; above it hovers a rectangular industrial office light. The cubicle is surrounded by a vast emptiness, as if alone in the universe. The two actors remain seated in the same chairs for nearly the entire show; time and location shifts are indicated by the dialogue and subtle changes in lighting. (The spare set is by Arnulfo Maldonado, with lighting by Tyler Micoleau and sound by Christopher Darbassie.)
Ryan (Will Brill) has come to see Keith (Kyle Beltran), a mortgage broker he met at their children’s daycare; Ryan, who is white and straight, works at the local yogurt plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, and is going through a divorce that involves a custody battle over his fifteen-month-old daughter, Krista. Keith is fostering to adopt Willa, who is the same age as Krista. Ryan is trying to get a loan to purchase a twelve-acre plot that used to belong to his family; he is desperate to recover a part of the past to ensure a better future for him and his daughter. Meanwhile, Keith, who is Black and gay and without many prospects for a partner, is frustrated by problems with the adoption process and Willa’s birth family.
The two men form a quick bond because neither of their lives is going as they’d planned or expected. “I hope this isn’t weird of me to say but — I think we share a specific kind of — sadness. You and me,” Ryan says to Keith in a deeply touching moment. Keith doesn’t respond at first but a few days later says, “I think you’re right. I think we share something, too.”
Samuel D. Hunter’s new play explores a growing friendship between two men trying to be single fathers (photo by Emilio Madrid)
As Keith works hard to find a way to get Ryan, who has no collateral, the loan, they become friends, hanging out together, watching movies, comparing their kids’ sleep habits, drinking whiskey, discussing mental illness and bullying, and growing more and more honest with each other. Keith explains his interest in early music, while Ryan doesn’t hesitate to admit that he doesn’t know what “harrowing” and “tacitly” mean but loves when his daughter says “popsicle.”
Embarrassed by his financial situation, Ryan tells Keith, “I just think there’s like a really specific kind of stress that I have about money? I mean I know everyone stresses out about money, but I’m not talking about that. It’s like . . . I guess I feel like having money is the only real permission I have to be alive? Like without it, I don’t have permission to exist.”
Meanwhile, Keith shares his innermost fears with Ryan. “I’m like the most anxious dad on the planet. I feel the phone in my pocket vibrate and I immediately think someone is calling me to tell me that my daughter is dead,” the broker says. Later he confesses, “I’m so scared, Ryan. I’m so fucking scared.” The anxiety both men experience is palpable and wholly relatable in the general sense of what we all have to deal with on a daily basis; it’s just unusual to see such remarks occur between two guys, especially a pair who are probably not used to divulging their feelings with anyone. “I feel like my life is so centered on being a dad right now, it’s actually just nice to have a conversation with another adult,” Ryan says. It’s actually just nice to hear these conversations as well.
Keith and Ryan are searching for what we all want, something that none of us ultimately can have: permanence. As we watch them struggle to get their lives in order, we can’t help but think about the impermanence in our own lives as well.
The forty-year-old Hunter’s previous plays all feature ordinary people up against ordinary situations, seeking companionship and connection, often with the past: The Whale is about a six-hundred-pound recluse; Greater Clements details an effort to save a former mining town from closing down; The Few focuses on a man and his former lover deciding if they should save the paper they run for lonely interstate truckers; A Bright New Boise warns against the dangers of blind faith; and Lewiston/Clarkston is a pair of one-acts in which the audience eats dinner together in between shows.
Samuel D. Hunter’s A Case for the Existence of God takes place in a small cubicle (photo by Emilio Madrid)
When Keith explains that harmony did not always exist in the Western musical tradition, Ryan is flummoxed. “That’s so sad,” he says. “I guess I feel guilty. I mean I’m trying to picture living in a world that only has music without harmony, I can’t even —. And I’m not like even a music guy. Jesus.” Keith asks, “But why does that make you feel guilty?” Ryan answers, “Because like — I’ve just been taking it for granted my entire life.” For him “harmony” means companionship and connection, an alternative to being alone.
Sensitively directed by Tony and Obie winner David Cromer (The Band’s Visit, A Prayer for the French Republic, The Sound Inside) with a sincere affection for both characters, A Case for the Existence of God beautifully explores the pain and pleasure of being a single father, balancing the constant angst and worry with the joy and love. In some ways it is reminiscent of Robert Benton’s 1979 Oscar winner Kramer vs. Kramer, one of the first major films to intelligently and fairly depict a father (Dustin Hoffman) fighting for custody of his son while going through a bitter divorce.
But the play, which Hunter wrote shortly after he and his husband adopted a child and sought to buy a two-bedroom apartment in a New York City co-op, is seen only through the eyes of the two men, flawed, complex human beings played with tenderness and understanding by Beltran (Blue Ridge, The Amateurs) and Brill (Oklahoma!, Tribes), who are used to being together in tight quarters; they were roommates while studying drama at Carnegie Mellon. Just as they don’t judge each other — well, they do, but then they don’t — we don’t judge them. There’s no toxic masculinity in the air, no homophobia or racism, no frat jokes, just an ever-deepening platonic friendship between a gay Black man and a straight white man.
“This feels like a chance to — hit the reset button,” Ryan says about buying the property. It’s a button we all reach for at one time or another in our lives. And if you’re searching for proof of the existence of a higher power, some kind of supreme being, Hunter’s play is a prime piece of evidence that there must be something bigger than us out there.