I have a friend who’s an Episcopal priest. When we first met, I asked him if his was a High Church or Low Church, referring to the degree of formality in the service. He replied, “We’re a Whatever Works Church.”
That’s pretty much the strategy adopted by Abigail, the freshly minted priest who’s just inherited the dwindling congregation and crumbling infrastructure of St. Michael’s parish, in WAM Theatre’s Holy Laughter, a new play by Catherine Trieschmann.
When we first meet Abigail – an amusing and sympathetic Amie Lytle – she’s looking upward, asking her employer (if you will) for guidance. As she concludes her plea, a fish falls from the sky. More sea creatures descend in subsequent heavenly chats, replaced later by a rain of pregnancy test kits.
But that’s later. Abigail’s immediate challenge is acceptance by her motley flock, a task exacerbated by inexperience and nerves. (In her maiden sermon, about “Community,” she keeps stumbling into embarrassing malapropisms, blurting out “bondage” when she means “bonding.”)
Four characters represent the parishioners. Elderly, conservative Lloyd is suspicious of any deviations from the traditional liturgy. Eager, guitar-toting young Noah, by contrast, is all for innovation in worship. So is Esther, an unreconstructed flower-child and self-appointed flag-waver for every progressive cause. Martine, wiry and fretful, is constantly taking up collections for her hard-luck nephew back home in Haiti, while being gradually seduced by a charismatic preacher’s evangelical church down the street.
That preacher is the assertive, sublimely confident Vivienne. Abigail, still flailing in her new position, accuses her of “poaching” her congregation, to which her competitor retorts, “I don’t know what you’re feeding them here, but they’re walking away hungry.” 
Both Martine and Vivienne are played by Kimberlee Monroe with a fine sense of physical character – the one pinched and anxious, the other hip and sassy.
The actors playing the other three parishioners also slip comfortably in and out of double roles. Ron Komora plays both officious Lloyd and Abigail’s avuncular bishop, to whom she confides, “I’m scared. Scared and horny.” Benjamin Zoëy contrasts puppyish Noah with laid-back Sam, Abigail’s love (or at least lust) interest. And Dana Harrison bounces adroitly between do-gooder Esther and acquisitive Myra, whose idea of supporting Abigail is recruiting her into a Mary Kay-style pyramid scheme.
As the title insists, Holy Laughter is a comedy, and leaning toward sitcom, its characters broadly drawn and its laughs leading to a sentimental finale. It does, though, touch on more weighty issues of faith, commitment and, yes, community. (In a program note, director Megan Sandberg-Zakian compares Abigail’s quest to that of theater directors “charged with shepherding our flocks of misfits towards something coherent and meaningful.”)
Abigail’s travails are not really a crisis of faith, though she does have some harsh words for the deity she signed up to serve. It’s a crisis of confidence – in her own skills as a pastor and her aptitude for the demands of the job. She’s torn by the competing needs of her congregation and by the physical needs of both the church building (a new boiler) and Abigail herself (sex).
Which brings up one of the script’s weaknesses. Abigail struggles with unfulfilled longings, which she apparently feels she mustn’t act on. For me, her issues with enforced celibacy are themselves forced. Episcopal priests aren’t bound by the Roman rules, so I gather she thinks it’s required simply for propriety in the eyes of her flock. But a major plot point hangs on her sexual needs, and it’s a pretty flimsy hook.
The show is billed as “a developmental workshop production,” which means the play isn’t considered “done.” It’s an opportunity for the playwright to see her work “up on its feet,” to judge what works and what doesn’t, which parts breathe naturally and which still cough and splutter.
There are moments that work just fine and others that still need tinkering, and the tone teeters indecisively between edgy and mawkish. Overall, the play suffers from the infamous Second Act Problem: a first act that sets up an intriguing premise, introduces compelling characters and complications, and then doesn’t know what to do with them.
A couple of the multiple plot threads involving Abigail’s parishioners are tied up by the end – Martine’s most satisfactorily – but some are just left hanging, and one, involving Noah’s perplexed sexuality, is apparently resolved but in a rather perplexing way. Abigail’s journey is enjoyable, but its windup is unprepared for and unjustified, narratively or dramatically. The inevitable happy ending, culminating in a bonding, tie-dyed liturgical dance, drops into the action as suddenly and unexpectedly as a fish from the sky.
Holy Laughter plays Friday–Sunday through November 22 at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage, 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield, (413) 236-8888, barringtonstageco.org. Info at wamtheatre.com.
Photos by Enrico Spada.
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