From Off-Off Broadway to Off-Broadway and then to Broadway itself, Robert Askins’s Hand to God has proved itself to be the little play that could since its 2011 debut. The tale of a miserable Texan teen, Jason, stuck in his mother’s Christian puppetry workshop, who finds himself taken over by Tyrone, the left-hand, red-haired sock puppet he’s fashioned, has clearly struck a chord with audiences, and Moritz von Stuelpnagel’s production now arrives in the West End with a great deal of audience goodwill towards it, judging by the wildly (over-)enthusiastic response to the opening night performance. In fact, it’s really not all that, but the show - best experienced with a large group of friends in a rowdy and undemanding frame of mind - proves a mildly amusing time-passer.
Although Avenue Q is the knee-jerk
reference point for the show (and one
stand-out scene of enthusiastic puppet sex here is a total rip off), the
scenario of Hand to God is actually closer in spirit to the likes of Richard
Attenborough’s Magic (1978) and the Michael
Redgrave-starring section of Dead of Night (1945), works in which
recessive male characters find themselves acting out their dark impulses via
ventriloquist dummies. But where those films mined the protagonist’s obsessions
for creepy chills, Hand to God goes for brash, broad, black
comedy, its target religious dogma. The play’s approach reminded me quite a
bit of another recent US import, Greg Kotis's Pig Farm, also a work that
has fun with American archetypes and indulges (excessively, IMO) in slapstick
violence – including, again, a full-on parody of a James M. Cain sex scene.
While neither play or production could be called
seamless (one especially awkward scene,
not helped by a First Night hiccup, is set in a car for no apparent reason than
to demonstrate that the show can evidently afford a car now), von Stuelpnagel makes
sure that the proceedings keeps up pace, and the play is ultimately better sustained than Pig Farm.
The production is helped in no small measure by the gusto
and physical abandon with which the cast throw themselves into their roles. I’d
have liked more of Jemima Rooper, who seems a bit wasted as Jessica, the nicely
nerdy object of Jason's desires but Janie Dee as Jason’s frazzled
Mom, Margery, Kevin Mains as his cocksure nemesis and Neil Pearson as a pastor
with romantic designs all his own are terrific. And Harry Melling delivers a
tour de force as Jason/Tyrone: always a distinctive and inventive actor,
Melling is in his element here, as he creates two distinct characters, his
timidity as Jason contrasting
hilariously with Tyrone’s foul-mouthed tirades.
Hand to
God doesn’t hit the few grace notes it strives for: as well as a
portrait of the divided human soul, the play strives – and, I think, singularly fails – to
touch the heart as a tale of a mother and son working out their relationship
after a bereavement. It’s thin material, and not a show to go to with big
expectations, but it looks pretty certain to gain some devout followers during
its time in the West End.
The production is currently booking until 11th June.
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