Off-Broadway Theater Review: Prodigal Son TOP PICK

Biographical Play is One of Shanley’s Finest
By Lauren Yarger
John Patrick Shanley’s latest play, Prodigal Son, getting its world premiere by Manhattan Theatre Club Off-Broadway, might just be his most personal yet – and not just because he is the writer and director.

This story (from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Doubt) is an autobiographical story of his time in the mid 1960s at Thomas More, a private prep school in New Hampshire. It was a period of time when the direction of his life was being decided, Shanley writes in program notes. Prodigal Son is the journey of a tough, troubled, but gifted young kid from the Bronx, who is given a scholarship to mix in with the nation’s elite (with only a few tweaks to true events for simplicity’s or clarity’s sake, Shanley writes.

Talented newcomer Timothée Chalamet (TV’s “Homeland” and Hollywood’s “Interstellar”) plays Shanley’s younger self, Jim Quinn. Original, haunting music by Paul Simon (yes, of Beatles fame) and exquisite, nomination-worthy lighting by Natasha Katz, help visualize the feelings of a boy out of his element and trying to cope with the “special, beautiful room in hell” that is age 15.

Though suspended from his previous school for saying he didn’t believe in God, Thomas More’s religious instructor and headmaster, Carl Schmitt (Chris McGarry), sees potential in the boy and gives him a chance.

“He’s the most interesting mess we have this year,” Schmitt tells his anti-war head of the English Department Alan Hoffman (Robert Sean Leonard). He’s so unlike the other upper-crust boy,  like roommate Austin (David Potters), at the Catholic school.

Jesus, like Socrates and even the school’s namesake, Thomas More, all were suicides, Quinn, surmises, because they allowed their persecutors to kill them when they could have taken action to stop their deaths.

Hoffman is amused by the boy’s mind and the philosophical discussions they share, but cautions Quinn about expressing his views to Schmitt -- who continues to make a case for Christ’s divinity. He especially discourages Quinn from sharing the thought that he might like to attend the headmaster’s alma mater, Harvard, and encourages him to shoot for NYU instead.

Quinn isn’t quite sure what to do. He continues his rebellious ways breaking rules and testing boundaries, but when he gets in trouble, it is Schmitt’s wife, Louise (Annika Boras) who comes to the rescue. She has been instructing the boy in her advanced English class and also sees something in him – perhaps a glimpse of the son she and Carl lost.

Hoffman is the one who reaches Quinn, whose prolific essays about Hitler are a source of consternation as well as amusement.

“Mr. Hoffman, finally SAW me. And more than that. Somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good,” Quinn, who sort of narrates the tale, says.

Over the course of years, the struggle for Quinn’s true calling, as it were, become more intense with both Hoffman and Schmitt trying to influence him. Will his passionate soul find light and be able to soar or will he give into loneliness and the darkness of despair that will crush him? Revelations about Hoffman and his motivations make the question about whom to trust even more intense.

Though story is from Quinn’s viewpoint, and told in the retrospect of adult memory, so the other characters here don’t develop much beyond what he would have known as the young boy. This is a brave piece of writing, as many lesser playwrights might have been tempted to try to round out the characters, to reveal a whole lot more about them, to make them more interesting. In keeping them contained – except for the Schmitts, who briefly reveal some of how their relationship is affected by the death of their son -- Prodigal Son truly becomes a memory of how things were for this one boy and the choices that made him who he is today.

Set Designer Santo Loquasto’s images of interiors of Thomas More as well as the school in the distance assist in the storytelling, into which Shanley paints pictures of faith, forgiveness, free will and choices that can make or break a life. And he does it all in a compelling 95 minutes without intermission.

Information:

Prodigal Son plays through March 27 at NY City Center I, 131 W. 55^th St., NYC. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday at 7 pm; Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 pm; select matinees. Tickets $90: manhattantheatreclub.com; (212) 581-1212.

Credits: Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley; Scenic Design by Santo Loquasto, Costume Design by Jennifer Von Mayrhauser, Lighting Design by Natasha Katz, Sound design by Fitz Patton, Original Music by Paul Simon, dialect Coaching by Charlotte Fleck.

Family-Friendly Factors:

-- Language

-- God's name taken in vain

-- Grace is said before meal