Devils We Know

THE DEVIL HAS long been wildly popular on stage, dating back to the Middle Ages when church authorities routinely cancelled performances because they worried that representations of the devil were so deliciously tempting that weak believers might falter. The dualistic image of a good, sweet angel on one shoulder and dirty demon on the other has infiltrated popular culture from children’s cartoons to adult sitcoms, signifying the struggle of our tempted conscience. And the devil always has the better jokes. In literary works, such as Paradise Lost and Doctor Faustus, the devil’s presence has driven plots forward through acts of temptation, leading the protagonist into some lusty or murderous act. The cliché is brought to life: “The devil made me do it.”

In 2015, the devil makes a serious comeback on Broadway in a successful run of Robert Askins’ new play, Hand to God, nominated for five Tony Awards, including best play and best direction. Askins takes his audience on a different kind of devilish journey.

In the basement Sunday school room of a Lutheran church in contemporary Texas, we meet a woman named Margery, who is experiencing profound grief after the recent death of her husband. She tries her best to move forward, filling her life to the brim with religious activity, starting a teen puppet ministry in the church and teaching the youth group to make puppets that will sing songs and tell Bible stories. Her son, Jason, a student in this fledgling class, has created a hand puppet named Tyrone who seems fairly ordinary, harmless, and cute. Jason is a good puppeteer, gifted, in fact. We see his talent unfold as he tries to impress Jessica, a girl in the youth group, with an artful rendition of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine.

But then everything begins to shift. Tyrone starts to speak in his own voice for Jason, and then not even for Jason but just on his own, as though Jason’s hand is possessed. Tyrone says the most unseemly, crass, and diabolical things, such as (speaking to Jessica), “He thinks you’re hot ... so hot he can’t keep from touching himself.” Tyrone comes to life in a way that the shy, demure Jason cannot. People begin to call Tyrone the devil—but what is he really?

Every character in Hand to God possesses demons and a divided self: Margery’s demon manifests in her raging grief, while Pastor Greg, who routinely hits on Margery, carries the demon of loneliness. Actress Geneva Carr, who plays Margery, told Sojourners, “These characters, none of them are off the hook. Margery’s got her grief, Pastor Greg his own backpack of burdens, and Tim [another boy in the youth group] has a bullying insecurity stemming from his mother’s alcoholism. Jason’s demon is just out there in the open, on his hand, saying the most inappropriate things. But all our demons speak to us and for us in awful ways.”

The actors in this dark comedy make it clear that Hand to God takes faith very seriously. The play never makes fun of religion, but rather strangely celebrates it. In fact, this play’s journey to the Broadway stage is a leap of faith in itself.

Robert Askins grew up attending a church in Texas—very much like the one depicted in the play—with a mom who started a puppet ministry. He began writing plays as a Baylor University theater major and came to New York in 2005. As part of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood writers group, he achieved a good deal of success. It was there that he first worked with the two leading actors in Hand to God (Geneva Carr and Steven Boyer) on a play called Matthew and the Pastor’s Wife. Motivated by this achievement, he decided to write something just for Carr and Boyer. That’s where Hand to God was conceived.

At its first reading at Ensemble Studio Theatre in 2010, Steven wore a hand-crafted sock puppet, and Tyrone was born. Hand to God has gone through many rewrites and drafts, playing off-Broadway at MCC Theater after three sold-out runs at Ensemble Studio Theatre. It moved to Broadway in March 2015 and has been a toast of this season.

This play seems an unlikely success, not only because one of its main characters is an evil sock puppet on a teenager’s hand, but also because the difficult themes of faith that Hand to God explores through this quirky dark comedy seem more subcultural than pop-cultural. “There are just as many fans wanting this play on Broadway as there are critics who think it shouldn’t be there,” says Marc Kudisch, who plays Pastor Greg. Kudisch tells a story about some friends of his who came to see the play and just couldn’t get past the offensive content and language. The five characters in this play (six if you count Tyrone) do terribly improper things to one another. Margery has sex with Tim from the youth group, Pastor Greg uses his authority as a minister to come on to Margery, and Jessica (who seems to be the only character with her feet on the ground) creates an overly sexualized female puppet to tempt the devil Tyrone. The puppet sex scene that ensues from her seduction is one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen on stage, and yet you can imagine how someone might take offense as they did with the puppet sex in Avenue Q.

Kudisch asked his friends to come see Hand to God a second time, now that they wouldn’t be surprised by the offensive content. When they took his advice, they found a great deal of meaning in the play. “They still didn’t like the offensive content, but they could now see past it,” says Kudisch.

Carr describes a different experience with an audience member. After the show, she met up with an older pastor backstage and asked him if he liked the play. He replied, “I loved it, it was very difficult.” She asked him why, and he said “Well, I’m a preacher.” She asked if the challenge was the language or sexual content. He said, “No, Christians have all that.” The challenge, rather, was that “watching someone in the church, Pastor Greg, take advantage of another person and prey on her in need was very disturbing, and it scared me, and it hurt me when I saw him taking advantage of other people for his own ego.”

As the plot of the play deepens into Act II, the metaphorical demons nesting inside these characters begin to take control, with Tyrone the sock puppet, who now has sprouted fangs, leading the way. The Sunday school room transforms into the den of a devil, complete with smoke and fire, looking a little like the exorcism scene in Ghostbusters. It becomes clear that Margery and Jason need a profound healing in their relationship. Carr, who was nominated for a Tony for her portrayal of Margery, says, “This play is about our need to connect with people, and if you don’t connect with them, you can go down a black hole of self-destruction. This mother ... never touches Jason in the whole play until this moment near the end, and then the healing begins to happen.”

The grief and pain are exorcised through the honest communication between mother and son. The demons are still there, but diminished.

In the end, this furiously funny play brings us to understand that the real test of faith is found in enduring life, in our encounters with grief, sorrow, and difficult human relationships, and in our own subconscious minds telling us we’re worthless and alone. Playwright Askins skillfully leads us on an unexpected journey of faith and healing. The outlandish language, sexual humor, and devilish sock puppet teach a lesson of love and faithfulness to one another in community.

Finally, Jason manages to pull the puppet off his hand in an act of horrifying violence that nearly kills him. He fearfully turns to his mom and asks, “What if he comes back?” Margery answers her son, “Then tell me, and I will try to listen.”