Theatre in Review: Saturday Church (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Photo: Marc J. Franklin

The new musical at NYTW is a tale of two churches, and alas, for the purposes of drama, one is far more interesting than the other. That's one problem facing Saturday Church. Clutter is another: Expanding Damon Cardasis' sweet, slight 2017 film on every front, the creative team loads up on subplots, clogging the narrative and depriving the action of momentum. Even with new lyrics applied to songs from the catalog of the pop singer Sia, the score has surprisingly little to say for itself. Displaying plenty of sass and showcasing some exciting new faces, it is notable more for its benign intentions than for providing electrifying entertainment. It's not unpleasant, but it relies more than it should on audience goodwill.

Inspired by rousing gospel music, menaced by gangs of bullies, and fascinated by the glittering creatures hanging out on the Christopher Street pier, Ulysses is a gentle-natured Black teenager mourning his father's recent death and nimbly evading questions about his sexual orientation. He has an abiding need to belong: He wants desperately to join his local church choir, but the adults in charge insist he is too "flamboyant" (oh, that word) in his gestures. (The book, by Cardasis and James Ijames, is good on the hidden-in-plain-sight rules of many Black churches, which leave boys like Ulysses feeling ignored and dismissed.) Pulling him in another direction is the institution of the title, sponsored by a Greenwich Village parish; it's a hangout for gays and lesbians, transgender and nonbinary people, and their friends, many of them homeless, shunned by their families, and working the streets. No points for guessing which is the authors' preferred church.

The film zooms in poignantly on Ulysses' isolation from those who profess to love him, gracefully tracking him as he comes to grips with his stifling existence, emerging from his cocoon into a strange, yet exciting, new world. In contrast, the musical dawdles, spending too much time with his recently widowed mother, Amara, who buries her grief in her nursing career, neglecting her son, and his aunt, the proud, pious Rose, who, unhelpfully, keeps urging her nephew to man up. The Broadway veterans Kristolyn Lloyd and Joaquina Kalukango are stuck with these dreary roles and their lachrymose ballads, which restate the characters' problems without adding anything new. (The book flirts with a romance between Rose and Lewis, her pastor, before dropping it altogether, further adding to the sense of stasis.)

Trying to gin up a role worthy of a Tony winner, the writers and their director, Whitney White, have cast J. Harrison Ghee as both the straight-arrow Pastor Lewis, who ineffectually schools Ulysses in masculinity, and Black Jesus, a drag version of the Son of God, who acts as Ulysses' personal adviser and our sometime narrator. It's the show's most original invention but, frankly, Black Jesus' status as all-powerful deity should guarantee better dialogue. (Modeling a fabulous pair of shoes, BJ says, "You think I'm gonna run the universe in a pair of blocky wedges?") Ghee, who can't do a thing with the cardboard pastor, at least gets to sashay around in Black Jesus' many ensembles -- but, girl, your laugh lines are tired.

Others in the mix include Ebony, the unofficial mother of the Saturday Church crowd, who keeps quitting the scene without actually going, preferring to harp on the importance of community while mourning her friend, Sasha, who committed suicide -- an apparently pivotal event that could use a song of its own. Ebony exists largely as a mouthpiece for the idea of Saturday Church as an alternate family, an idea so obvious it hardly needs stating. (This truly is a church show, given all the preaching onstage.) The one-named Anania and Caleb Quezon add some snap and confidently throw some shade as good-hearted, if alarmingly superficial, members of Ebony's posse.

Holding everything together by sheer force of charm is Bryson Battle as Ulysses, who is, by turns, stoic, easily wounded, and earnestly agog in the presence of the Saturday Church crew. He makes a very nice thing of his first ballad, "Beyond," which solidly establishes his inchoate yearnings ("Beyond fierce, beyond tough/Beyond my fears, am I enough?/Beyond the tears, beyond these walls/How do I get beyond?" It's the rare number that benefits from the score's often bewilderingly vague lyrics.) Especially touching are his scenes with love interest Raymond, a kindly street kid, a pro at selling his body yet who yearns for emotional intimacy. Jackson Kanawha Perry is effortlessly sensational as Raymond, using his throwaway charm (including a killer smile); casual, yet sinuous dance style; and knockout voice to command the stage in his big Act II love song. If the lyric are even less inspired than the others on offers ("Die for you, die for you/"I'd lie for you, lie for you/I'd cry for you, cry for you"), he makes them seem irresistibly romantic. ("You sure know how to make a case," Ulysses tells his boyfriend. Yes, if you don't listen too closely.) Whatever happens to Saturday Church, which clearly has hopes for a more extended life, you can expect to see Perry again.

Raymond's number benefits from a charming staging by choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie, who could do more to keep Saturday Church moving at a livelier pace; as it is, director White has yet to master the art of marshalling a large-scale musical. I'm of two minds about the production design. David Zinn's two-level set, defined by purple brick walls and a turntable that reveals Ulysses' home, is functional and appropriately gritty, but one wants more visual variety. Adam Honore's lighting peps things up with plenty of side washes, saturated colors (starkly contrasted with white washes), and blinder effects, and Qween Jean's costumes certainly draw a contrast between Rose's church colleagues and Ebony's gang. Both Honore and Qween Jean were involved in last season's Cats: "The Jellicle Ball," and it's amusing to see them hit the ballroom scene again in the show's finale. Completing the costumes are the abundant wig and hair designs of Dhairius Thomas. Gareth Owen's sound design is typically loud (with a throbbing bass line) and also typically intelligible.

The score, featuring additional music by Honey Dijon, has some attractive hooks and underlying rhythms but, even with additional lyrics by Cardasis and IJames, the songs have a generic pop quality; nobody involved has the knack of writing for a diverse set of characters. Combined with awkward book scenes, the play lurches to a laughably melodramatic climax, with Rose thrown to the floor and Amara on her knees, a hand raised in desperate prayer. There's a promising musical lurking somewhere in the original material but it needs more experienced musical theatre pros to tease it out.

Still, audiences are so hungry for affirmation in these divisive, cruelly self-righteous times that, in the short run at least, there may be enough theatergoers gratified at the chance to cheer on Ulysses, Ebony, Raymond, et al, especially in the overly rosy finale. (The crowd at the performance I attended drank it all in with gusto; I felt like I really was at a Sunday service.) In a way, Saturday Church is a welcome step beyond, say, Kinky Boots, which treated its drag/nonbinary characters like exotic house pets. But if it is to move past its current engagement and achieve a longer life, it needs a tauter book, a more dynamic staging, and songs that tell us something about the people singing them. It has yet to reach peak fabulousness. --David Barbour