VALERIE TERRANOVA
Matt Monaco, left, and Chauncy Thomas in “A Case for the Existence of God.”
Don’t be misled by its title, which makes it sound like a Philosophy 101 term paper. “A Case for the Existence of God,” currently being presented by Luna Stage in West Orange, is a universally relatable modern tale about two young fathers who meet because their 15-month-old daughters go to the same day care center. They may not seem to have a lot in common, on the surface, but become friends, and help each other cope with the bewildering complications of their respective lives.
This may be overstating it a bit, but they seem, at times, like two lost souls, clinging to each other. “I think we share a specific kind of sadness,” one tells the other, at one point.
Playwright Samuel D. Hunter, whose other plays include “The Whale” (he also wrote the screenplay for its Oscar-winning film adaptation), pulls off the near-miraculous feat of creating a well-rounded sense of these two men’s lives while having virtually all of the play consist of conversations they have with each other. The relationship goes through some rough patches, but gets deeper and deeper, and by the time Hunter gets to his surprising ending, I felt a strong connection to both characters.
Luna Stage artistic director Ari Laura Kreith directs this one-act, 90-minute play, and Lauren Helpern designed the imaginatively decorated set, which evokes the complicated emotional lives of the characters. Most of the scenes take place in the office or at the home of Keith (played by Chauncy Thomas), who works as a mortgage broker in Twin Falls, Idaho (the state’s eighth largest city, with a population of about 50,000).
VALERIE TERRANOVA
Matt Monaco in “A Case for the Existence of God.”
The action starts when Ryan (Matt Monaco, seen at Luna Stage last year in the intense “Rift”) comes to Keith’s office to talk about a mortgage. For subsequent scenes, they change their positions, or move around pieces of the minimal set — an effective way to evoke the passing of time, or the changing of circumstances.
Ryan works in a yogurt plant (Twin Falls is indeed home to the world’s biggest yogurt-making facility, owned by Chobani) and, though he has little money to work with, wants to buy a 12-acre piece of land that belonged to his family, decades ago. He also wants to build a new home there: This seems to represent, to him, a way to get his life back on track. He is unhappy at work, and he and his wife have broken up. He is on edge, and daunted by the financial jargon that Keith spews.
Kudos to Thomas for making Keith sound comfortable with these mortgage-related lines; it must be like learning another language. Still, I definitely related when Ryan exploded in response to them. “You keep saying (these words) over and over again until they feel real, but they don’t, like, correspond to anything in the real world,” he says. “Like, it’s all just a big mathematical system that’s been created so everyone can feel like they’re a part of something bigger: like they belong, in some way, because they’re a little gear in a huge machine that makes everything run!”
Keith is understanding. “You have to play by the rules, and pretend it all means something, or you don’t get anything,” he says. “That’s most of what being an adult is.”
But beneath his initially placid exterior, Keith is stressed out as well. He is gay and single, and calls himself “the most anxious dad on the planet.” Though he feels like a father, he is not one yet, technically, and is not sure that the system will allow him to adopt his girl, after the fostering period is over.
VALERIE TERRANOVA
Chauncy Thomas in “A Case for the Existence of God.”
As Keith and Ryan continue to discuss the mortgage, and then start hanging out together — these two lonely, relatively new fathers don’t seem to have a lot going on in their lives, beyond work — we learn about their pasts. Ryan was popular in high school, but his home life was a mess — his parents were both addicts, and his father died young — and he wound up working in the factory and living in a one-bedroom apartment, after the end of his marriage. “How am I so shitty at everything?” he asks, in one of his frequent moments of exasperation,.
As a Black, gay teen in a predominantly white city (less than 1 percent of Twin Falls is African American, according to Wikipedia), Keith had been an outsider in high school. But his father is a successful lawyer, and he has done lots of traveling. Still, he has wound up back in his hometown, where the options for gay dating are few (he says). And though he is happy to have his job, he doesn’t seem to find it particularly exciting or rewarding.
The two men talk, and sometimes fight, and try to figure each other out. They also help each other weather some of life’s rough spots. By the end of the play, they have few secrets left. “I had never said it out loud, so I guess it was good to do that,” says Keith, after sharing a particularly painful thought.
I think most of those watching “A Case for the Existence of God” will feel a similar sense of catharsis by the time it gets to its remarkable final scene, which is sad and realistic, but not bleak — and, in a way, even a little uplifting.
Luna Stage will present “A Case for the Existence of God” through March 16. Visit lunastage.org.
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