Review: Another Christmas, Another Family Meltdown in Cult of Love on Broadway

Ah, the holidays. Time for families to gather for big meals, gift exchanges, holiday cheer, and … a little speaking in tongues? That’s what’s in store for the annoyingly festive Dahl family in Leslye Headland’s chaotic play Cult of Love, directed by Trip Cullman and running at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theatre.

Headland trots out a handful of some well-worn tropes of kitchen-table dramas — judgmental parents, an estranged son with an addiction, alcohol-fueled anger and resentment — but Cult of Love, her Broadway debut, gives a quirky twist to an otherwise familiar dysfunctional family: everyone plays instruments and breaks into song faster than the Brady Bunch on a sunshine day.

It’s a gimmick that almost works, mostly due to a cast that knows how to hit comedic high notes on beat. But with 10 characters and a 100-minute run time that’s nowhere near long enough to dig into what makes these people tick, Cult of Love too often feels like an empty gift box.

The Dahl family celebrate every Christmas in their Connecticut farmhouse (impressively detailed set by John Lee Beatty), with guitarist-mom Ginny (Mare Winningham) and her pianist-husband Bill (David Rasche), who’s slowly losing his faculties. The music kicks off right away as eldest son and ex-seminary-student-turned-lawyer Mark (Zachary Quinto) plucks a banjo and sings a lesser-known Christmas favorite, “The Cherry-Tree Carol.”

Mark’s wife, Rachel (Molly Bernard), who converted from Judaism to Christianity, joins in along with Mark’s sister Evie (Rebecca Henderson, Headland’s real-life spouse), who has bought her wife, Pippa (Roberta Colindrez), to the party. Then there’s youngest daughter Diana (Shailene Woodley) and her husband, James (Christopher Lowell). He’s a homeless Episcopal priest who wants to start his own church, and she’s a self-proclaimed prophet ready to counsel any soul she deems in need of saving. Let the fun begin.

For a little while, folks do have fun feeling Christmassy (a big tree together with Heather Gilbert’s colorful lighting adds the appropriate yuletide touch). Ginny doesn’t begrudge herself a punchbowl of Manhattans to prepare herself for the arrival of her recovering-alcoholic son, Johnny (Christopher Sears), and the former opioid addict he’s sponsoring, Loren (Barbie Ferreira). But all the melodica blowing and oddly chosen carols (including an insufferable rendition of the traditional Black spiritual “Children Go Where I Send Thee”) can’t prevent the zealots from offending the reprobates — the addicts, the doubters, the atheists, the lesbians. And then comes dinner! It’s not hard to imagine where all this is going.

Cullman does a good job defining the juvenile atmosphere of Ginny’s insular, reality-denying “Dahl” house (“Santa’s workshop,” Rachel calls it) even as the characters begin to go out of focus. The top-notch cast impress with their comic timing and vocals (sadly, Darren L West’s sound design sometimes overpowers the voices), but the actors often struggle to stay believable. Woodley gives an infuriatingly excellent performance as the proselytizing Diana, but she loses steam with a heavy-handed revelation that feels hopelessly contrived. Mark’s ambivalence about leaving the priesthood points to a fascinating backstory, but for most of the play Quinto fades into the background. Even Winningham fails to excite much interest with her retiring portrayal of Ginny. Religion is an easy sacrificial neck to stick a critical knife into; unfortunately, Headland (a seasoned writer for Russian Doll and The Acolyte) dissects the play’s issues more than its characters.

A few roles, however, are relatively fleshed out. Bernard’s exasperated performance as Rachel makes it clear why she needs to quit this family as soon as possible. Colindrez and Henderson create a believable couple fed up with the family’s homophobia. Lowell, wearing a sad-sack green sweater (costumes by Sophia Choi), shows us an indignantly pathetic James. Ferreira, however, gives the most memorable performance as total outsider Loren, who stares down the preachy Dahls because she doesn’t really give a damn about any of these people except for Johnny (Sears playing a misfit prodigal to a T). The fact that Loren still has a dose of Oxy in her purse is all the backstory from her that we need.

One good thing about Cult of Love is that you’re likely to come away from it thinking that at least your family isn’t that bad. Then again, maybe the Dahls have the right idea about the holidays. In our acrimonious times, it might be better to stop talking and just turn on some music.