Review: The Leveret and Midwest Porn and Catholicism and You

You should be paying attention to the Tent Theater Company, the new organization founded by Aimée Hayes and Tim Sanford. For 37 years (first in the literary department, then as artistic director), Sanford helped burnish the reputation of Playwrights Horizons as the premier venue for new American plays. He oversaw the premieres of I Am My Own Wife, Grey Gardens, and Clybourne Park, as well as several less successful plays. But that is always a possibility when you’re actively pushing the form forward.

Tent bills itself as a home for elder playwrights, and they certainly need one when so much of institutional off-Broadway is looking for the next Jeremy O. Harris—writers barely out of drama school and desperately hoping to be noticed by Netflix. But what about the career playwright who still has plenty to say?

I still believe Tent’s mission could prove a valuable one, despite the two duds Hayes and Sanford have chosen to produce on the company’s maiden voyage. Quincy Long’s Midwest Porn and Diane Glancy The Leveret are running in rep at the 14^th Street Y. Touching on vaguely Catholic themes, the plays address the violent conquest of modernity, a subject we should all be thinking about as AI is poised to transform our lives, largely without our consent. Unfortunately, neither play offers much original thought or valuable historical perspective.

The stronger of the two is Midwest Porn, which takes place at St. Mary’s Catholic elementary school (Sanford produced Long’s People Be Heard, another play with a scholastic setting, in 2004). Father Don (Gilbert Cruz) instructs the 4^th graders ahead of their confirmations, but there’s a possibility the school will close. There’s a turtle infestation in the girls’ bathroom, which young Mikey (Bubba Weiler) addresses by shooting these slow-moving targets with handgun he stole from his father (Matthew Maher), a retired detective turned full-time porn addict. Mikey hates pornography and cannot help but detect a voyeuristic prurience in the way the shelled reptiles sneak up through the toilet. Meanwhile, young Beatrice (Piper Patterson, exuding a quiet zealotry) wants to tear it all down. Her first action will be to lead the students in a collective rejection of confirmation, embarrassing the school in front of the bishop.

It’s a Nyquil nightmare inspired by timely anxieties: the prevalence of guns in a society on edge, the rise of the machines in our sex lives (there’s a mildly amusing but mostly confusing scene depicting a porno shoot that is actually a product placement for a sex bot), and the radical reaction this dystopian hellscape has inspired in young Americans, who seem to be dividing along gender lines—boys to the right, girls to the left. All of these are fascinating topics that keep me up at night.

But like a class clown who thinks he’s funnier than he is, Long frequently derails the conversation to take us on fantastical digressions, none of which are satisfyingly resolved. The result is a wild turtle chase.

The performers valiantly attempt to realize Long’s hyperactive vision through energetic, specific performances. Danielle Skraastad is especially memorable as Mikey’s mom Wanda, who improbably goes undercover at St. Mary’s by enrolling as a new student. As Sister Meg, the nun who conducts Wanda’s intake interview, Rae C. Wright perfectly balances her incredulity with the school’s need for bodies. Sadly, none of the actors can overcome director Carolyn Cantor’s listless direction (we spend entirely too much time watching Maher inflate an air mattress).

Frank Oliva’s set evokes a parochial school, while providing for stealthy transformations (there’s a secret bar behind the chalk board). Mary Louise Geiger’s hanging institutional fluorescents subtly give way to more nocturnal moods. Heather C. Freedman appropriately outfits the students in plaid uniforms, but she’s clearly having the most fun with the porno shoot. And Ian Scot Williams underscores the transitions with the authentic sound of turtles fucking. It’s the funniest thing in this try-hard comedy.

But I’d rather be half-heartedly laughing than checking my watch, the tick Glancy’s The Leveret most inspires. A solo play told from the perspective of Antonio Cruzado, the Franciscan friar who designed and ran Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which the city of Los Angeles has enveloped since the mission’s founding in 1771. It’s a tale of civilization imposed at gunpoint, buttressed by the assumption that God approves of this behavior.

Bobby Plasencia delivers an authentically dull performance as Cruzado, his bland smile and tortured laugh lines conjuring that priest who dreamed of drama school but settled for seminary and a captive audience each Sunday. He walks onto Oliva’s set (the same one from Midwest Porn, but with the addition of an austere table, chair, and prie-dieu) wearing a blazer, which he removes and places into a wardrobe (Freedman did the adequate costumes). He swaps his laced shoes for sandals (with socks!) as he settles in to tell us about his journey from Córdoba and his struggle to convert the native Gabrielino Tongva people. It feels like a surreal knockoff of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood produced for EWTN.

Sanford had personally directed this one, adding little flair or shape to Glancy’s unfocused and repetitive script. Plasencia’s most distinct character is Brother Sanchez, a homosexual scoff at Cruzado’s quixotic evangelism. But his performance feels one-note and underprepared, with Plasencia frequently stumbling over his lines and inadvertently knocking props to the ground as he repositions the set to hit the lighting cues.

Designer Joey Moro is going for dark night of the soul, but mostly it’s just dark. Sound designer Rona Siddiqui partially fills out the world of the mission with clanging church bells and clinking hammers. It’s pleasant enough underscoring for Cruzado’s descent into professional despair and communion wine alcoholism. But we know this play is beyond redemption long before the actor starts dry humping the furniture.

But we shouldn’t be ready to strike tent yet. I look forward to what this new company has to offer next, having learned many lessons from this dismal debut.