Review: The Saviors, Bubba Weiler’s Heartbreaking Drama of Truth and Lies

There’s an ongoing debate over whether America is on the cusp of a religious revival, with some churches reporting a surge of young converts while statistical studies sound a cautionary note. The conclave is out, but one thing is irrefutable: The social atomization brought about by rapid shifts in technology, then stretched to dystopian proportions by the Covid pandemic, has left millions feeling unmoored and hungry for some sense of certainty and community. The church is an ancient solution to that very human need, but is it the right one for everyone?

Bubba Weiler enters the chat with The Saviors, now making its must-see world premiere at Atlantic Theater Company. It’s about Michael (Ivan Howe) and Paul (Julius Rinzel), two altar boys at a small Catholic parish in the Midwest. We can immediately tell how central Catholicism is to Michael’s identity as he speaks breathlessly about the lives of the saints and challenges Paul to a race to see who can extinguish candles the fastest. We also sense how important Paul is to him when he suggests that they take each other’s names for their upcoming confirmations. Having proclaimed this bro marriage, it’s on to Barnabas Prep and then St. Ambrose College, excellent schools for two young Catholics who can clearly see their side-by-side lives stretched out in front of them.

But Paul isn’t so sure he’s ready to commit to this future, or if he even believes in God. He nevertheless exemplifies Christian charity when a drifter named Julian (Stanley Simons) enters the church at the end of the day and Paul invites him to spend the night in the sanctuary, to Michael’s horror. Paul then walks a mile through the snow to deliver food to this stranger who claims to have once been an altar boy himself. Paul does it because it’s the right thing to do, but perhaps he is also looking for a sympathetic ear.

As with his last play, Well, I’ll Let You Go, Weiler proves to be an inordinately sensitive observer of the tenuous obligations we have to one another, and the little lies we use to spackle the façade of a fracturing society. Michael is only the most glaring example of that. Everyone knows he is in love with Paul, but no one is willing to say so out loud—least of all Michael.

Howe delivers a hauntingly realistic portrayal of a tightly wound young man clinging for dear life to a set of beliefs that he hopes will guide him through the terra incognita of adulthood. His plastered smile, his needling insistence, his penchant for emotional blackmail—it was all painfully recognizable to me because I was once that closeted gay boy. It’s an extraordinary New York debut.

An uncommonly interior actor for someone so young, Rinzel meets Howe’s performance with the palpable ambivalence of a young man who knows he is transforming into someone who can no longer play the role Michael needs him to fulfill. He desperately does not want to hurt him, but he also isn’t willing to premise his life on a lie. He can clearly see what that has done to the adults around him.

The infinitely watchable Crystal Finn plays Judy Leonard, the woman who leads the youth group and plays the organ at Mass (Avery Reed outfits her in the most hideous Christmas cardigan, telling us the story of a woman still not ready to relinquish the holiday cheer well into mid-January). Deeply devoted to the church, she is the most accessible example of an adult life guided by Catholicism; but she has her own secrets, which Finn reveals to us in her own distinctly humorous and achingly human way.

Simons thrillingly conveys two truths about his character: Julian is a man who is lost and in need of salvation; he is also an addict unwilling to save himself. A late scene between Finn and Simons cracks open this contradiction, probing the limits of Christian forgiveness, a tenet of the faith that has long been fertile ground for abuse. It’s the most challenging and illuminating scene in a drama full of powerful revelations.

Jack Serio directs with a steady hand, giving the text room to breathe without ever allowing the performances to become maudlin. David Zinn’s set will feel instantly familiar to American Catholics with its mixture of statues and stained glass set against dull institutional carpet and a bright red exit sign over the door. It’s a physical manifestation of the practical compromises we all must make, even the most devout.

Sound designer Leah Gelpe treats us to the din of a Mass in progress as we enter, later underscoring the transitions with notes of rising tension to build on what the actors have so beautifully conjured. My one quibble is with Stacey Derosier’s lighting, which realistically captures the dimness of a church sanctuary at night, but also obscures the actors’ faces. Bumping it up a hair while still producing a moonlit effect might have been a better choice.

But that is a minor, quite fixable problem with an otherwise exceptional play, which feels destined to find a home in theaters across the country. Approaching his story with bountiful empathy for all, but also a sharp eye for hypocrisy, Weiler feels like a playwright who has been at this for decades. Can you believe this is only his second professionally produced play?

The Saviors is about relationships breaking down among a group of four individuals. But it can easily be viewed as an allegory for larger trends, as old social bonds fray and the opportunistic rush in with proposals, some quite traditional, for how to replace them. Quietly but persuasively, Weiler is urging us to be cognizant of the real needs of individuals as we build this new world—to live not by lies.