Playwright Allen Barton
has the gift of creating real people in relationships and situations that we
recognize in our own lives. Far more than a diatribe against Scientology, this
is a nearly tragic look at how all organized religions, by their very essence, separate
people. Two stories overlap and prove this point, one with terrible sadness,
the other with a fearful warning. To be a sane thinking person in a mad world is
obviously a major problem in our own society today.
A man (Bo Foxworth) seeks
his lost daughter who was sucked into a cult at age 15 after her mother was
killed in a car accident that was his fault. He tries to ingratiate himself
into the cult and in the beginning finds serenity and an easing of his burden
of guilt. Then as the tentacles grow stronger and more obvious he has to decide
if his love for his daughter is stronger than his fear of the machine.
The first act is deeply
moving as the man is embraced by an elderly music teacher (Dennis Nollette) who
helps draw him back to sanity. The bond between them is strong, yet it must be
disconnected.
The daughter (Carter Scott), now a young wife, and pregnant, deeply
loves her brainwashed young husband (Luke Cook). She longs to escape the same
tentacles but, when she faces down the Chairman (Everette Wallin), she must be
disconnected.
How that is managed
becomes the alarming second act. The only false note is two monologues that spell
out what we already grasp and nearly wreck the emotional impact of the play.
Superbly directed by Joel
Polis and produced by Gary Grossman of Skylight Theatre Company.
At the Beverly Hills Playhouse,
254 South Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills, though November 8. Tickets:
213-761-7061 or www.skylighttix.com.
Photos by Ed Krieger
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