Off Broadway

Grace 

 (Lucille Lortel Theater; 198 seats; $60 top)

By MARILYN STASIO

Mick Gordon and A.C. Grayling's play 'Grace' offers a debate between a mother and her dead son over religion and rationality.

An MCC presentation of a play in one act by Mick Gordon and A.C. Grayling. Directed by Joseph Hardy.
 
Tony - Philip Goodwin
Tom - Oscar Isaac
Ruth - K.K. Moggie
Grace - Lynn Redgrave
Voice of Dr. Michael
Persinger - Robert Emmet Lunney
 

Lynn Redgrave's commanding performance as a British  academic and an offbeat narrative device that allows her to argue theology with her dead son combine to create the illusion in "Grace" that we are in for a substantive debate about the upsurge of religious belief in intellectual circles. But that illusion doesn't last long in this collaboration of writer Mick Gordon and philosophy scholar A.C. Grayling. This family of academics may be intelligent and articulate, but their theology is rudimentary, their positions rigid and their arguments superficial. If one of them weren't dead, we'd probably never sit still for this.

Unlike her illustrious thespian kin, Redgrave has made a specialty of playing less vivid, rather ordinary characters who can suddenly stun you with the force and depth of their hidden passions. That alone makes her a natural for the role of Grace, a professor of the natural sciences who has come by her agnosticism the old-fashioned way -- through scholarship and common sense.

As we only gradually learn in fractured time frames, Grace has been profoundly shaken by the violent death of her son, Tom (Oscar Isaac, in Christ-figure mode), in some maddeningly unspecific terrorist attack that may or may not have had something to do with his recent religious conversion and aspirations to join the priesthood. 

When she participates in a scientific experiment that induces "mystical feelings" by sending electrical impulses to the brain, Grace does not see Jesus or the Virgin Mary or Mohammed, like other subjects of the experiment: She sees her dead son, and their earnest conversations about his faith and her lack of it pretty much make up the meat of the play.   

Joseph Hardy, whose Broadway directing credits go back 40 years, is a supportive creative to have at the helm of this talkathon. Leaning ever so lightly on Tobin Ost's minimal set of hide-and-seek screened panels and Matthew Richards' brain-soothing lighting design, he effortlessly draws sturdy perfs from all. Philip Goodwin brings the right light touch to Grace's mild-mannered husband, Tony; K.K. Moggie injects a bit of spirit into Tom's girl friend, Ruth.

But their underdefined characters serve mainly as buffers in the metaphysical debates between Grace and Tom. Similarly, the ostensible topics of the secondary characters' arguments with Grace -- over where Tom's memorial service should be held, or whether his missionary zeal exposed him to the attention of religious terrorists -- prove to be more mechanical devices than genuine conflict.

None of these dramaturgical shortcomings would matter as much, perhaps, if the showdowns between Grace and Tom had some kick. But both the language and substance of Tom's Christianity are underwhelmingly touchy-feely, while Grace is deprived of a supple mind and forced into rigid rationality.

Redgrave is a brick about it, nonetheless, and when Grace is allowed to have one genuine tirade against religious maniacs who kill for love of their God, she moved at least one preview audience member to burst out in applause. Would that the rest of the play had the same force of its convictions.

Sets, Tobin Ost; costumes, Alejo Vietti; lighting, Matthew Richards; sound, Fabian Obispo; production stage manager, Robert Bennett. Opened Feb. 11, 2008. Reviewed Feb. 7. Running time: 1 HOUR, 30 MIN.