John Pielmeier’s early ’80s Broadway hit Agnes of God returns to the Columbus stage this weekend in a raw, superlative production directed by Kristofer Green.
Agnes of God, in two acts over a taut 100 minutes, follows the psychiatrist Dr. Martha Livingstone’s (Susan Gellman) attempts to determine if the young nun Sister Agnes (Eli Brickey) is competent to stand trial for the death of her baby found in a wastebasket. Mother Mirian Ruth (Catherine Cryan) hovers around the young, troubled woman like a mama bear. Intense emotional realism infuses the murder mystery elements and makes this play compulsively re-watchable. The joy here doesn’t rely on “whodunnit.” Its pleasures come from the gnawing, desperate peeling away of psychological layers.
Green’s direction uses the square in the middle of the theatre to amplify the prize-fight elements of the play. He and the cast use the sensational elements but undergird everything with the crushing sense that there’s no prize: only the weight of all our histories and all our screwing up. Brickey’s Agnes, with her voice too beautiful to be pure, plays with remarkable nuance. She never plays the nun as a victim even as she switches from hypnosis-induced flashbacks to the character’s current tabula rasa.
An electrifying give and take runs between Gellman and Cryan. Gellman gets maximum effect out of a calculated eyebrow. Her Dr. Livingstone’s struggle to keep the emotional basis for her rational opinions below the surface is a riveting, physical performance it’s hard to take your eyes off. Cryan masters the art of parrying and disarming, her Mother Miriam takes the historical preservation of the church to heart and watching her try to keep to the righteous path is jaw-dropping.
Warehouse’s production of Agnes of God is a sparse, brutal psychological thriller. An electrifying evening of theatre with performances that will echo in your head for days.
Agnes of God runs through November 12 with performances at 8:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more info, visit warehousetheatre.org