What’s most exciting about “The Saviors,” a play ostensibly about two altar boys, is the feeling that you are witnessing the literal early stages of several major talents: Playwright Bubba Weiler, whose “Well, I’ll Let You Go,” last year was an astonishing debut play; director Jack Serio, Weiler’s collaborator on both plays; and also the two actors, Ivan Howe and Julius Rinzel, who portray the two main characters, and are their exact age – 13 and 14 respectively. I haven’t seen such assured performances on stage from anybody so young since 12-year-old Aran Murphy took on the title role in “Hamnet” (not the movie, a 2019 play at BAM.) It’s a welcome paradox that they so confidently embody the insecurity and awkwardness of adolescence. They are also, despite the blessed white vestments they wear, rambunctious, enthusiastic, competitive – best friends who playfully wrestle and tumble with one another, and race to see who can finish snuffing out the candles first or stuff the most church bulletins.
It’s this realistic portrait of adolescence that kept me engaged even while I found the story that unfolds in “The Saviors” harder to embrace.
As they are finishing up their churchly tasks for the day, the two boys are startled to see a stranger arrive at the altar. This is Julian (Stanley Simons), a young man with begrimed face, dirty clothes, a weather-beaten backpack. He tells them he just wants to pray. Michael (Howe) says the church is closed. Paul (Rinzel) is more hospitable, and, realizing the man is homeless, soon invites him to stay at the church, over Michael’s objection. Their differing reaction to the stranger previews a growing rift between the two of them.
That night, Paul walks to the church through the blizzard to give Julian some sandwiches, and to tell him that he doesn’t want to be like everybody else who grows up in this small Catholic parish in the Midwest – someone who “stays here, and like…works some job, and has some kids, and really loves God and like that’s their whole life….I guess I think I’d rather be like you.”
It’s an odd thing for Paul to say to somebody he’s just met, part of the playwright’s effort to make Julian’s appearance a pivotal moment in the story. It’s not terribly convincing that his presence would have such an immediate effect, if taken literally. But the meticulous setting of the church (kudos to designer David Zinn), and the title, are among the clues that we are meant to understand “The Saviors” as a message play about faith and fate.
I’ll give an example that might be considered a spoiler, but it’s hard to talk about the subtext otherwise, and in any case it unfolds so delicately that it’s easy to miss. We are eventually supposed to understand that Paul doesn’t want Michael, either, to have the life he has mapped out for himself. It’s because Paul realizes that Michael is attracted to him, figures this makes Michael gay, and Paul thus feels that Michael would not thrive in such an intolerant religious environment. This is presented so indirectly that it’s nearly unspoken.
If the play considers Paul and Michael’s future, it lingers on the past in an intertwining plot with revelations that sneak up on us (not as easy to miss) involving Julian, who I’ll only say is not just a random stranger, and Judy (Crystal Finn), who works at the church. We meet Judy in a funny scene where she is presiding over the church’s youth group, for which only Michael has shown up. (When Judy writes “ Youth Group Initiatives” on an easel and solicits contributions from the “group,” Michael offers, tentatively “Get more members?”) But it soon seems evident that she is in some ways at the center of what Weiler is trying to tell us – that the choices that Julian and especially Judy have made speak directly to the question inherent, but buried, in the title. In Catholic theology, there is only one savior. The play seems skeptical, if sympathetic, to those who strive to take on the holy role, wondering if it is inevitable that they will betray or be betrayed.
The Saviors
Linda Gross Theater at Atlantic Theater Company through August 15
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $25 – $112
Written by Bubba Weiler
Directed by Jack Serio
Sets by David Zinn, costumes by Avery Reed, lights by Stacey Derosier, sound by Leah Gelpe
Cast: Crystal Finn as Judy, Ivan Howe as Michael, Julius Rinzel as Paul, and Stanley Simons as Julian
