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Usher Nonsense, Vol. 2, No. 13
SIN by Michael Murphy, Directed by Carl Forsman (The Bald Soprano & The Lesson)
Featuring: John Cullum (Wilder), Dan Daily, Cynthia Darlow, Thomas Jay Ryan, Pablo
T. Schreiber and John Leonard Thompson
Sets - Nathan Heverin (Sixteen Wounded), Costumes - Theresa Squire (The Bald Soprano
& The Lesson), Lights - Josh Bradford
Through December 4, 2004
This is a not so very good play with very good actors. The playwright edited the deposition
testimony from two civil suits over sexual abuse within the Catholic Church filed against Bernard
Cardinal Law. While no allegations were placed against Law, himself, he was held up as the
person most responsible for allowing them to happen. These transcripts were released to the
public by the presiding judge in the 2002 cases. The playwright has taken a great deal of care to
reconstruct these events, and intersperses testimony from the parents of victims, other members
of the clergy as well as the victims themselves.
The latter are particularly moving as they portray a litany of abuses that stretched over decades.
Dan Daily and Cynthia Darlow play all theses parts, with the exception of one. They are part of
the current trend of having strong actors play a variety of roles in a production (People Be Heard,
Reckless), which reduces the budget, and gives the actors great range in a short time. Like the
other actors in this piece – they do an excellent job.
Against these statements, the deposition is set, and while it paints a tawdry picture of Cardinal
Law, there is little dramatic structure here on which to hang your hat. John Cullum is given the
thankless task of having to say "I don't know," I 'm not sure," "Someone on my staff handled
that," "I don't recall this letter," etc., over and over and over again. While it clearly points out
the lack of attention paid by the Church's highest official in New England, it doesn't give Cullum,
or the actors playing lawyers, much of a back yard in which to frolic. Too bad for us.
At the end of the play we are told that, far from punishing Law in any way, the Pope has recalled
him to Italy where he now resides as the chief mucky muck of some little office of the Catholic
Church. Now we can imagine him not doing his job in Italian.
©2004 by Tulis McCall