The opening beat of Graceby Craig Wright starts with a BANG! A strange, very nervous man (Paul Rudd) shoots himself and others. We seem to have a dissolve, and the play starts as a flashback.
Beowulf Borritt’s artistic, imaginative set has two neighboring apartments occupying the same space, all in a kind of mystical oval background, one with a religious couple (the scripture-spouting fanatical Jesus purveyor Rudd and his also religiously-saturated wife Kate Arrington) who have come to Florida to open a chain of Gospel Motels, and one with a wounded man (Michael Shannon) who has lost his woman in an auto accident.
Ed Asner enters each apartment as an exterminator. His performance is stylized-- an accent, an odd walk-- an actor showing a character rather than being it— but he’s quite entertaining. He claims to be an old German (no tattoos) who hid Jews in WW II and was forced to do an abominable act, and I believe him, because of other information that comes out at the end, but his accent is not German — it’s Yiddish. Who cares? It’s Ed Asner, and it’s great to see him on the stage again.
The theme seems to be: “Is There a God?” mixed with a real-estate scam. Rudd fills the stage as a big, handsome, enthusiastic, exuberant galoot. Arrington has a lovely feminine sensitivity, and I believe what she says and does as she goes through a transition.
Michael Shannon, for me, steals the show. He’s a man with a deep inner life — a totally believable portrayal filled with undercurrents that peek out in his fascinating performance. He has the intensity of a Steve McQueen. The entire hour and a half show, clearly directed by Dexter Bullard, with brilliant lighting by David Weiner, is theatrically fascinating — gripping.
