Prodigal Son

John Patrick Shanley returns to the Manhattan Theater Club with the play Prodigal Son, written and directed by him. His play Doubt: a Parable opened in November of 2005 in Manhattan Theater Club, was transferred to Broadway, toured around the country and the world and brought his author many rewards including Pulitzer Prize fro Drama and Tony Award for Best Play in 2005. The play was adopted for the screen and made into a movie in 2008, Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis.

Prodigal Son continues to explore some of the topics of Doubt. It’s an autobiographical coming of age story about a troubled youth in a religious educational facility, Thomas More Preparatory School in New Hampshire in the mid 60s.  It starts with Jim Quinn (Timothée Chalamet) arriving to school and talking to its director Carl Schmitt (Chris McGarry, who starred in Doubt on it’s national Broadway tour).

Jim is a sharp 15-year-old who is outspoken, very well read and passionate. He is also a troublemaker as he constantly starts fights with fellow students, steals and argues about God in religion class. Carl Schmitt has the opposite temper: he is a very reasonable and calm man, who is fearful of God and always follows the rules.  His wife, Louise Schmitt (Annika Boras), accuses him of choosing the path of idealism because of his laziness, “You don’t have to decide anything because ideals do things for you”.  Confronted with Jim, Carl will be forced to make decisions which will affect the young man’s life, and which will “make him,” in the words of Jim. And as much as we root for the young troublemaker, we also pay close attention to the emotional journey of the school director, which might seem very subtle but is equally painful and important for the play.        

In the conversation Carl has with one of his stuff members, Allan Hoffman (Robert Sean Leonard) he mentions that he saw Birds by Hitchcock recently and was terrified by it. The idea of unreasonable, uncontrolled forces of nature turning against people reminds us of the wild personality of Jim, which Carl tries to tame. That’s why he asks Allan, known for being friend and mentor of troubled students, for help. Both the director and professor had their personal mental wounds: Nikola, one of Allan’s students, was trying to commit suicide, for which the professor still blames himself; Carl accidentally killed his son and can’t forgive himself either. How Jim will turn out suddenly becomes a very personal matter to both of them, Jim becomes a symbolic, biblical “Lost Son” for both.

Timothée Chalamet makes a brilliant Jim. He starts out intensely and as the play progresses he fills more and more room with his witty and poetic talk which reaches it’s climax in the dialogue with the school director during the final exam. This is the kind of performance where you truly believe that this fictional person exists and breathes the same air as you do. The magical moment when the text of the play, the character, and the actor merge together while supporting each other, bring the words to life. Every little detail starts to shine and seems meaningful: the crooked tie, the way Timothée walks and hunches slightly.

The costumes by Jennifer von Mayrhauser were good in the sense that they didn’t destract from the actors. Prodigal Son takes place from 1965 to 1968 and at first I was slightly disappointed when I didn’t see more period specific designs and styling. With the exception of Mrs. Schmitt, everybody was dressed and groomed in a rather modern way, which I came to appreciate later in the play. I am glad the creators decided to go timeless rather then time-accurate in costume designs.

Scenic Design by Santo Loquasto had the same clear and timeless look to it. The majority of the scenes were happening in small, minimalistic sets, which were rolled into the middle of the stage and then rolled away. It all was tied together with the ark in the background and a “doll house” model of a school in it. Bare trees on both sides of it made the stage smaller and cozier providing a feeling of lightness and openness at the same time. Loquasto managed to achieve an atmosphere of a private school in New Hampshire on top of the mountain: you feel trapped in a doll house but at the same time you are surrounded by a great and massively open space, and the beautiful powerful nature.

The sound design by Fitz Patton and original music by Paul Simon gave the play its smooth flow. Music and sound effects were mostly used between the scenes but were much more then just transitions filling pauses. They carried the mood and felt more like the 60s than the visual elements. They were subtle enough to not draw attention to themselves but pronounced enough to be noticed and admired. Like the time when an instrumental piece reduced to just it’s tempo of a ticking clock, lights come up and we see Carl in his office. The massive grandfather clock behind him is soon to stop and he has to rewind it, which starts the scene.

Prodigal Son is worth seeing for good performances, especially that of the talented Timothée Chalamet. It may lack dramatic moments (all of them are happening towards the end and are a little bit jammed together) but even the quiet scenes are charged with energy like a taut spring. The show is very clean visually and feels like a gulp of a fresh mountain air.