Sacrilege

NEW YORK An Alexander H. Cohen and Max Cooper presentation of a play in two acts by Diane Shaffer. Directed by Don Scardino.

Cast: Ellen Burstyn (Sister Grace), Brian Tarantina (Crackerjack), Giancarlo Esposito (Ramon), Damian Young (Father Jerome), Herb Foster (Cardinal King); Jane Cecil, Augusta Dabney, Reno Roop, Frank Raiter.

It's the rare American playwright who can mix the political and the personal in such a way as to make for compelling theater, and it will be instructive to compare American writer Diane Shaffer's well-intentioned but dead-in-the-water play-writing debut, "Sacrilege," at the Belasco, with British author David Hare's "Racing Demon," already acclaimed, having its Broadway premiere at Lincoln Center Theater. Both plays deal with challenges to the old order and the ways in which institutionalized religion is responding to the changing needs of the flock.

"Sacrilege" caught the attention of Ellen Burstyn, and it's unlikely the play would have come so far without the support of a star. She plays Sister Grace, a nun who has devoted her life to serving the Sisters of Charity as director of the Houston Street Crisis Center but who is convinced that her true calling is the priesthood.

Sister Grace takes her cause to the streets, to the Village Voice, to Donahue -- to anyone who will hear her. She infuriates the Pope, who dispatches an emissary in the person of Cardinal King (Herb Foster) -- the parish priest who originally inspired her to devote her life to God -- to shut her up. She will not be shut up. Among her big successes is Ramon (Giancarlo Esposito), a chess hustler-turned-acolyte who eventually becomes the priest Sister Grace cannot.

Earnest as all get out and full of observations with which many will agree, "Sacrilege" is nevertheless the work of an amateur. Cast mostly as a series of dialogues between mouthpieces whose positions are clear from the outset, the play is, well, preachy, not to mention repetitive and, in the end, lifeless. The flat staging by Don Scardino, typically one of our most resourceful directors, merely underscores that. It's a goner, and unquestionably within short order.

I wish that weren't the case, because "Sacrilege" takes on a timely subject with considerable restraint. Just before disenfranchising his star pupil, the cardinal makes an impassioned speech about the role of the Church as worldwide human rights advocate; for all its didacticism, this is no diatribe. But it's no play, either, and Burstyn's uninflected delivery of one predictable speech after another grows tiresome early on. The final scenes are frankly preposterous, though no more so than most of what has come before.

Despite all that, "Sacrilege" sometimes moved me to tears. After all, how many plays take on such loaded issues? Even bad art can stir people (to action as well as anger, as was evidenced in the talk among audience members at intermission). The sacrilege referred to in the title, Grace explains, is the sin of sexism, and "the contamination filters down"-- a compelling truth.

"Sacrilege" won't change anyone's mind, but at least the arguments are being aired. I only wish they were given a surer dramatic context. An inquisition scene is staged complete with looming shadows, and another in which Ramon's best friend (Brian Tarantina) dies of a drug overdose closes the first act with a Pieta re-creation. With its high rows of votive candles in blank walls marked by dark square windows, John Arnone's stark all-purpose medieval-modern setting is Swiss-cheesy. Howell Binkley's lighting and Alvin Colt's costumes are also pretty basic.

Still, Foster, a last-minute replacement for John Forsythe, is persuasive as the cardinal, and Esposito plays Ramon with sweet conviction -- amazing since his character has no correlative in the real world. Burstyn is oddly uncomfortable in the role of Grace; through most of the play, there's no passion in evidence, though in that department she's been severely shortchanged by the author. We know very little about Grace's interior life.

"Sacrilege" is full of pronouncements. It's a soulful polemic. It's not much of a play.

Set, John Arnone; costumes, Alvin Colt; lighting, Howell Binkley; sound, Aural Fixation; associate producer, Hildy Parks; production stage manager, Bob Borod; casting, Meg Simon; press, Merle Debuskey; general manager, Marvin A. Krauss. Opened Nov. 2, 1995, at the Belasco Theater. Reviewed Nov. 1; 1,018 seats; $ 45 top. Running time: 2 HOURS, 20 MIN.

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