Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: Altarcations

The Catholic-based drama Doubtdealt with the ambiguity of the “did he/didn’t he”-premise surrounding a boy which a priest had been accused of molesting.  The film version builds on the element of suspense (unfortunately, I have not yet seen a production of the play), as it’s up to an imperfect nun to hunt for justice within the guarded internal mechanics of The Church.  In Steve Julian’s Altarcations, the story isn’t as cagey and addresses the disease instead of just the symptoms of the historically recent sex scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church.  It bravely jumps into the gray area of the pool and presents some fresh, little heard insight on the matter.  Clerical officials conduct an internal investigation presided over by Bishop Michael (Travis Michael Holder).  His hollow call to arms suggests little, if anything, will happen while matters are left to the responsibility of his colleagues.  As well, the play explores the unfolding relationship between Father Bart (Robert Keasler) and his protégé Tommy (Drew Hellenthal).  Altarcations opens with a controversial image of a teenage altar boy kneeling subserviently before a priest he innocuously, rudimentarily helps dress.  Living away from home while receiving a precursory seminary-based education, the student inquires how a pastor can offer informed guidance to parishioners with little real life experience.  He’s smart, inquisitive, and takes his studies seriously.  He’s young enough to still wear rose-tinted glasses and believe in The Good of the Church, without having fallen prey to self-serving adult desires.  While Altarcations admirably tries to provide a well-rounded view of the Catholic religion/organization during its finely examined prosecution, any defense attorney offering a rebuttal would have to resort to less-than-genuine tactics to make a case for this machine that is simply broke.

Bishop Michael (Travis Michael Holder)
presiding over Father Bart (Robert Keasler)

Nuns strangely seldomly enter the realm here, physically or in conversation, which is telling, considering the more sex-driven gender controls most matters.  The script also downplays the well-supported notion that sexual orientation and the object of a ephebophile's/pedophile’s desire are mutually exclusive to one another.  While an untreated victim who becomes an agressor does seek out victims who share the gender of their victimizer, gay activists tend to impress upon “hetero-married” men molesting young boys as such an indication to separate the mental disease of pedophilia, etc, from homophobic backlash.  But, this play doesn’t pussy-foot around: if in one’s heart of hearts, one truly loves dick and they happen to be(come) a pedophile, etc, then they’re probably going to be sticking their hands down the pants of boys and not reaching them little girls' skirts.  It's not rocket science.  On the other hand, Julian also tries to level the playing field.  Bishop Michael is supposed to be straight, because he talks about how much he lovesvagina.  It’s pretty well understood that priests are disproportionately gay (as it's a vocation that removes them from the possibility of hetero-marriage) and the audience is left to believe that The Church has been incredibly adept at sweeping its heterosexual offenders under the clerical rug more so than their gay counterparts.  It’s a political correct Communion wafer that I’m not sure this reviewer can swallow.

Robert Keasler

It’s also understood by those who subscribe to basic Christian tenets that man is sinner.  But, society regards religious institution with an “implied moral superiority.”   Yet, priests, bishops, The Pope, are all still men (i.e. sinners).  (Father Bart, a modern human like anyone else, plays with his cell phone during a confessional and expresses ungodly impatience under his breath while a parishioner attempts to unburden herself of a long-held secret.)  By not discussing the elephant in the room, this cloudy, ill-defined notion places a fox squarely as hen house guardian.  And, unfortunately, there is no one to protect the innocent without government and law enforcement involvement.  And, until then, the guilty are just “weeds” and will continue to pop up all over the place. 

Altarcations also shrewdly attacks the vow of chastity and the repercussions of the sexually repressive nature of celibacy.  So often it is heard that pedophiles, etc, are created through nurture vs. nature more than anything else, but it’s often in the light of the perpetrator planting the seeds in the victim.  How far do you go back before you actually address the real source of the problem?  Particularly in the case of gay men, who are disproportionately attracted to the occupation of priest, the play smartly implies, in not so many words, what can you expect will happen to a man (i.e. a sinner adorned with clerical collar or not) without a healthy outlet for his sexuality?  And, unfortunately, Father Bart sees his lust as a betrayal of priesthood, not humanity.

Drew Hellenthal

The oppressive act of praying the gay away only leads to praying the pedophilia, etc, away, which only results to temporary absolution offered by the Catholic confession, where Father Bart finds harbor.  All talk, no action, the confession temporarily relieves the conscience, until one falls prey to their weaknesses yet again.  It’s an ironic cycle that perpetuates an insidiousness on both small and larger scales that ultimately effect the devilish managerial style of The Church.  “Absolved, not changed,” Bishop Michael explains to Father Bart.  Being forgiven of one’s sins does not bring one closer to God.  In fact, in the mind of a deluded priest, it can drive him closer to Satan.  Like anything else that’s too big to fail, no wonder the Catholic Church is declining in numbers.  Marring the development from child to adult leaves the scarred individual to fend for themselves, who might actually become a monster themselves.  No amount of prayer changes who you are and/or turned into, the play suggests, making the plight of protecting children all that more vital. 

Travis Michael Holder

Playwright Julian exhibits some sharp observations (Tommy muses over the possibility of Jewish football players in the context of the game’s non-kosher centerpiece) and writing (“money trickles up; judgment trickles down”).  There are a couple of creepy, suggestive moments that the play tackles head-on, otherwise, what would be the point of telling the story without providing some level of discomfort.  The efficient tone of the 80-minute production (sans intermission) is effective and thoroughly absorbing until contrivances muscle their way in, as the scenes soon compensate by being over-directed.  You know the confrontational climax is coming, but you don’t expect a less than earnest tone.  Julian loses the emotional capital he has spent building up and the inappropriate (perhaps inadvertent) dialogue makes a mockery of its victims, both potential and otherwise.  There’s also a twist that is a heavy-handed and maudlin eye-roller, but eventually regains its footing.

Dylan Jones

Hellenthal as Tommy does an admirable job with his complex role.  He achieves some incredible moments while struggling with the character’s plight, but, at times, the lines between character and actor blur and that struggle doesn’t translate completely to the stage.  Holder lords over the cast as the slovenly, yet matter-of-fact Bishop Michael.  He’s a jaded cog in more ways than one in the Roman Catholic’s insatiable appetite for puer delicatus.  The secret he harbors becomes clear very early in the script, though he handles his duplicitous nature quite well to bide the time.  Additionally, as the defeated Rachel, Dylan Jones carries her nightmares in several oversized pieces of emotional baggage.  The weight of the world is on her shoulders and Jones gives everything inside of her to her character.  Keasler as Father Bart carves out a nuanced, touching turn in a challenging role.  He can do a lot with very little.

The scene transitions include imagery of Jesus Christ, The Last Supper, the inside of a church, doves, a locker room, all  projected on the back wall of the theatre while organ music plays and stagehands change around set pieces.  Interspersed between the imagery is a video interview with a woman speaking to a news reporter about the problems of sexual abuse in the church. 

The excellent, thought-provoking show stumbles in the final act, reaching for a grandiosity it can’t support.  Still, with all of its flaws, this is one of the must-see production to watch at Hollywood Fringe this year.  The play offers an original perspective that finds little, if any, voice in the mainstream.  Please go see this, warts and all.  Curated by the Coeurage Theatre Company, Altarcations shows at the Actor’s Circle Theatre on June 10^th (4 PM), 15^th (5 PM), 17^th (4 PM), 22^nd (5 PM), and 24^th(4 PM).  You can buy tickets here. 

Favorite off-stage moment: The bitchy side-eye Julian Sands shot the person behind him when she started audibly turning pages in her program during an intimate moment of the play.