Critical Response to “You Want To Be A What?”, a review of the theatre production “Grace”

Response by James Spica

Art revolves around current issues, and the debate between religion and science over the origins of earth, as a current issue, makes a good topic for art. This quality about art will ingrain the viewers’ attentions make the art more comprehensible, as well as being a good vehicle for exasperation with current affairs.

“Grace” is a theatre piece about a Science teacher who, believing strongly in evolution, is appalled to discover her son’s dream of becoming an Episcopal priest. The play, according to Charles Isherwood, who wrote a review of the play for Tuesday’s New York Times, is a dismal failure.

This review is a blatant pan. At no point does Isherwood take the play seriously, though he often describes it in an almost serious manner to supplement his sarcastic view of a play which he finds ridiculous at every turn. He describes how the characters are played “with crusty dryness” or lack of “nuance”. His degree of summarization, which comprises a good half of the review, suggests that he thinks, and perhaps rightly so, that the absurdity of this play speaks for itself. He expresses the notion, at the end, that “it is not easy to take entirely seriously the idea of a personal revelation explained by way of a Keanu Reeves movie”, in describing the “mystery of his [Tom’s] calling” as being apparently “borrowed from the Matrix.”