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Paul Rudd portrays an evangelical Christian in a time-tripping drama

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

“Grace” begins and ends with murder – more or less the same murder – and what happens in between those points during Craig Wright’s play probably is meant to consider whether our existence is random or guided by divine forces.

Either way, the drama that opened on Thursday at the Cort Theater unfortunately doesn’t add up to much more than a sketchy portrait of a committed Christian who gradually loses his grip.

The central character, Steve, is played with a relentlessly bright smile and an accruing sense of desperation by Paul Rudd. Steve and his wife Sara (Kate Arrington), another cheerfully evangelical soul, have recently moved to Florida, where he is developing a chain of Christian-themed hotels.

Residing next door in an identical apartment is Sam (Michael Shannon), a NASA communications expert who is grieving over the recent death of his girlfriend in a car crash that has terribly disfigured his face. Left to her own devices by her preoccupied husband, the lonely Sara befriends Sam.

The conversations between these three people regard faith and grace and similar spiritual issues. Then Steve’s ambitious project begins to disintegrate, he is plagued by an increasingly nasty rash and Sara finds herself drawn towards Sam.

As we already know from the beginning, the conclusion is bound to be deadly – or perhaps not.

During several crucial instances along the otherwise straightforward path of his 90-minute story about bad things happening to good people, the playwright abruptly rewinds the chronology. This tricky device – reminiscent of J.B. Priestley’s time-tripping dramas – suggests that perhaps through some accidental or divine intervention, the fatal destiny of the opening scene might not be so inevitable.

Perhaps the play’s fourth character, an elderly pest exterminator named Karl (Ed Asner), a crusty atheist who witnessed World War II’s horrors, could prove to be a deus-ex-machina who will avert the tragedy.