When Tim Davis, producing artistic director of New City Players (NCP) and director of Samuel D. Hunter’s raw and unsettling play, A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, welcomed us to Island City Stage’s intimate blackbox in Wilton Manors, he praised the unique sense of “presence” and “community” that only happens in live theater. A once in a lifetime experience! Or as Davis put it: “Never again in human history will this group of people be here together, watching a play.”
True. But we did a lot more than “watch.” We felt it all, almost too much, in our guts and in our souls. Practically as soon as the play commenced – with ever deeper and louder drumbeats delineating a new scene or (with more beats) the following day – we were drawn, as never before, into this two-hander drama of adult men in their late 30s. Unlikely brothers in arms, they’d both graduated 20 years earlier from the same small-town high school in Twin Falls, Idaho, but were raised very differently. One grew up scarred by death and addiction; the other was financially privileged but still subject to social discrimination.
Ryan (Ryan Didato) is white, depressed about his failed marriage, and has trouble keeping his blue-collar job as a yogurt plant worker. Mental health issues run deep in his family. His parents were both drug addicts. His father died from his addiction when Ryan was nine, while his mother continued to work at the local Pay ‘n Save before it became a Walgreens. (Generations back, the family had owned a large tract of land in the area but lost it all. His great-grandfather ended his life by setting his house, with himself inside, on fire in their remaining 12 acres. Now gone as well.) After Ryan’s wife got her master’s degree, she wanted a divorce and recently applied for custody of their 15-month-old toddler, Krista, the sole light of Ryan’s life.
Keith (Randall Swinton) is single, Black and gay. His parents are professionals and he was exposed to the wider world, including visiting Estonia as a teen, because his dad liked to travel. After graduating college with impractical degrees in Early Music and English, he rejected the life of an academic to return to his hometown, finding gainful employment as a low-level mortgage broker. He’s also fostering 16-month-old Willa, having nursed the baby back to health ever since she was born to a meth-addict mother. Heading toward the two-year mark, he’s desperate to adopt the toddler he loves as his own. When it comes to the possibility of losing their children, these two men share what Ryan refers to as “a specific kind of sadness.”
Despite clashing in intellectual style and employability, the men soon bond over parental fears and worries. Upon considering more affordable daycare, Keith quickly advises: “Stay the hell away from Cuddly Kids. I’ve heard bad things.” Often anxious and/or overwhelmed, they nonetheless continue to fight to keep the children they love while ensnared by the harsh demands of an unsympathetic, numbers-driven bureaucracy. They met while dropping the kids off at daycare and Ryan, who’s eager to buy his family’s original 12 acres of beautiful, river-view land that’s come up for sale, mistakenly heard Keith say he was a mortgage “lender.”
Upon visiting his cubicle office (where the 90-minute [no intermission] play primarily takes place), Ryan keeps referring to him as such despite Keith’s repeated attempts to explain his role as mortgage “broker” is to find him a bank that offers the best possible loan rate and payment timeline. He also warns against using quick online lenders who will scam you with hidden fees and the worst deals around. (Set in the present, the play also offers insights into our rather harsh and unforgiving mortgage loan system.)
We first see the two men in their separate corners. Ryan appears confused while riffling through a sheaf of papers; Keith, partially turned away, is busy on his computer. He tells Ryan, “I can walk you through it.” Looking frustrated and unhappy, Ryan responds, “I’m still reading it.” Then when Keith asks if there’s a part he doesn’t understand, Ryan says, “All of it.”
The documents demand lots of facts regarding work history, earnings, credit ratings, bank accounts, other assets, and more. When Keith attempts to give him an example of a recent mortgage offer of a 30-year loan on a $106,200 house, Ryan shouts: “Please stop. It’s all really upsetting!” It’s hard for him to understand that no one cares about his dream of reclaiming a piece of his family’s legacy. That eventually building a home for his daughter on this land gives him purpose in life. He’d done his research – there’s a well on the property, and they could live in a prefab at first. He doesn’t see why he can’t tell the banks that he’s a decent person, an involved father, and would work his darndest to meet his financial obligations.
Keith is sympathetic but has heard it all before. And now is forced to explain to this overwrought, emotionally vulnerable human being that the banks simply “don’t care about you as a person; you’re just a number to them.” There’s a place where playwright Samuel D. Hunter practically gets on a soapbox to complain about how we are conditioned to “play by the rules” and work the treadmill of life until we die, and then our children are stuck repeating the same grueling process.
Hunter, likely best known for his play “The Whale” which was adapted into an Oscar-winning film, has commented that if there’s one theme which runs through all his work, it’s “the tragedy of isolation juxtaposed with the redeeming value of human connection.” With so many of today’s young people glued to their cellphones and preferring fantasy AI “relationships” to more messy, human interactions, those who insist on connecting with bodily humans may already be an endangered species.
But let’s get back to our play’s two protagonists. During an early encounter with Ryan at his workplace, Keith is obviously shaken by a distressing call from Willa’s social worker. Ryan tries to console him, maybe even give him a hug, but Keith instantly pulls away. Partly it’s learned behavior as a gay man, though Ryan is quick to assure him he’s straight and simply wanted to make him feel better. But there’s more. We eventually learn that Keith instantly recognized Ryan from high school, though it was obvious that Ryan – who’d been quite popular and mostly ignored the queer black kid at the time – had no idea who he was. Finally, Keith enlightens him, adding, “I can’t square the kid in high school with who you are now and the sad stories.” Ryan admits he was “an arrogant kid” and remorsefully asks if he’d really made fun of Keith’s T-shirt.” But Keith makes light of the incident, saying it was a dumb shirt his father had brought back from his travels. And they’re good again.
Despite several, pulling-away pauses, the two men begin to socialize after hours over a shared whiskey bottle, baring their souls and confiding their fears. It’s no longer about business, though Keith – who’s having a very hard time finding a bank that will accept his now friend (though he still tries) – attempts to convince him that even if he doesn’t acquire his family’s original 12 acres, he can always just get a house somewhere else. But Ryan won’t hear of it.
