A Case for the Existence of God

This mesmerising, slow cooker of a play is about the unlikely bond between two contrasting men.  God has little to do with it, except perhaps blessing these Idaho blokes with friendship and a faintly optimistic end.

Ryan is desperately chasing a bank loan when he visits a mortgage broker Keith.  Uneducated and broke, divorced and reared in a family of drugs and mental ill health, Ryan at least has some remaining naïve faith in humanity.  Keith, on the other hand, is fairly privileged and university educated (in early music); he’s also black and gay.

Over 90 minutes, confined in a box of a space, seeming to offer few outside opportunities, the men rarely leave their seats as the scenes unravel.  What they have in common is a powerful love for their toddler daughters at the same day-care.  Ryan struggles to buy a scrap of his family’s lost land to convince the divorce judge he’s worthy of custody; Keith is terrified the system may snatch back the toddler he’s reared through fostering to adaptation.  Their shared fear and “a certain sadness” is palpable.

Samuel D Hunter’s play is exquisitely authentic as this friendship deepens into trust and revelations, and always qualified (perhaps overly) with masculine offers to step back from truth if it hurts too much.   Anthony Gooley is outstanding, never unreal as the anxious Ryan, always twitchy and eye rolling in self-deprecation, intense in his trust and listening.  With more reserve, Elijah Williams also thoroughly convinces as the stoic and haunted Keith.  The play often rewards with a laughter of recognition.

Craig Baldwin directs the two with precision, although with the static staging, some more surprise in pace and emotion would be welcome.  Jeremy Waters’ costumes well match these characters. Veronique Benett’s box set is striking and expressive, based mostly on Keith’s office, but ultimately restricts wider options of storytelling.  Her moody lighting shifts however do much to assist, as does Baldwin’s sound.  

Some is the early music showing Keith’s great love of polyphony, a harmony he tries to explain to Ryan.  But these two blokes from Twin Falls have their own harmony.  It’s an experience well worth sharing.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Philip Erbacher