Shows from Third Rail are a treat for this critic. With each show,
they do something that no other company can consistently pull off: They
maximize every aspect of the production. Lighting and sound are precise
and effective, whether reinforcing the action or powerfully dominating
the room. Acting is top-notch—some of Portland’s finest actors
are members of Third Rail’s company—and if you’re looking for new
work from engaging contemporary playwrights, Third Rail is a pretty
good place to start.
Their current production of Grace is the third script from
playwright Craig Wright that Third Rail has tackled in their three-year
history, following 2005’s Recent Tragic Events and last season’s
The Pavilion. While I applaud the company for their ongoing
commitment to Wright’s work—and see the appeal in the man’s
juxtaposition of intensely personal narratives with overarching
metaphysical themes—Grace left me with that rare
frustration of seeing a production that is better than its
material.
Steve (Damon Kupper) and Sara (Stephanie Gaslin) are a young
Christian couple, recently moved to Florida because Steve’s faith in
the efficacy of prayer led him to invest in a shady-sounding hotel
management scheme, complete with mysterious overseas investors. Sara is
often home alone, so she reaches out to her neighbor, Sam (Leif Norby),
scarred and reclusive since the car accident that left his face
mutilated and his fiancée dead. Doug Mace as an embittered
exterminator with no patience for Steve’s proselytizing (he calls Steve
“Jesus Freak”) completes the
ensemble, which tips into tragedy as
the limits of faith are tested.
The staging is some of the best I’ve ever seen: a generic living
room in a generic apartment complex, so generic that the same set is
used to represent both Steve and Sara’s apartment, and Sam’s next
door.
Unfortunately, too much here is too big and too broad: the
exterminator with the dark past, the neighbor scarred on the inside and
out, the different characters each representing a different approach to
religion. The material is epic in scope, with an ending worthy of any
Greek tragedy, but I can’t help feeling that a smaller, quieter
desperation would’ve made for a more powerful meditation on religion
than one in which questions of faith are resolved with gunfire.