God so loved the theatre he appears before us in the body of an actor five shows a week. Fans of the original Twitter feed on which it was based or irreverent religious humor are well-served by CATCO’s production of David Javerbaum’s recent Broadway hit Act of God, directed by Steven Anderson.
Act of God finds the divine one himself possessing a local actor (Tim Elliott), flanked by his archangels Gabriel (Ted Amore) and Michael (William Darby IV) in his latest attempt to justify his ways and puncture humanity’s attempts to make sense of his will. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t think much of us. In a 90-minute one-act, he provides a revised 10 Commandments intended to show he’s not a “one-list wonder.”
The acting throughout is superb – Elliott’s take on the venal, preening, frustrated God drives home that he created humanity in his image and humanity has, through the years, created him in theirs. There’s a darkness behind every great entertainer and Elliott has a bone-deep understanding of that. God’s most human trait here is the combination of his desperation to be understood and how terrible he’s been at it for lo these many years. His God refers to an improvisational element in the creation and maintenance of the Earth, “riffing,” he calls it, around an overarching plan. This knowing wink to Lenny Bruce serves the material well. When the knives come out, it’s a joy to behold.
Anderson’s finely-calibrated direction keeps things as tight as they can be for a script with this much padding. Much of Act of God is dramatically inert in ways it doesn’t have to be. Darby’s hysterically funny Michael, as a representative for “what the audience is thinking,” could be a rich vein of conflict but doesn’t ever really get to go toe-to-toe. For centuries-old frustrations, they sure get smoothed over quickly. For every fresh, jaw-droppingly funny riff, there’s an unfortunate tendency in the material to hammer every single joke into the ground for 10 minutes.
While not a home-run, Act of God lands its jokes and sells ideas that could sound controversial to exactly the audience that might need to hear them most. It’s a noble effort with some very funny moments and charm to spare.
Act of God runs through September 25 with shows at 8:00 pm Thursday-Saturday, 11:00 am Wednesday, and 2:00 pm Sunday. For tickets and more info, visit catco.org.