‘The Savannah Disputation’ a religious comedy

By Cynthia Citron

Cynthia Citron

BURBANK, California —  Whose God is it, anyway?

In Evan Smith’s sparkling new play The Savannah Disputation, the question is anything but moot.

Especially not to Melissa (Rebecca Mozo), a permanently perky proselytizer from one of those religions that consider it their mission to show everyone the error of their ways.

Melissa lands on the doorstep of a pair of Catholic spinster sisters, Margaret (Bonnie Bailey-Reed) and Mary (the incomparable and contentious Anne Gee Byrd) and immediately begins to bombard them with forthright assertions about the falseness of their faith.

Margaret, the more susceptible of the sisters, is very quickly led to doubt her own convictions, while the irascible Mary tries to avoid the discussion altogether by attacking Melissa.

“Good luck will not get you into heaven,” Melissa asserts. “That’s one of the Catholic errors.” Then, in a clumsy attempt to mitigate her harsh judgments, she comments, “Take away their religion and Catholics are just people…”

To an attack on the infallibility of the Pope and his ex cathedra observations Mary responds hotly: “If you don’t hear it in the first place, you don’t have to believe it!”

The earnestly tactless Melissa, whose cell phone plays “Mission Impossible,” continues to hammer at the sisters’ beliefs until Mary hatches a counter-plot. She invites their parish priest, Father Murphy (a mild-mannered Josh Clark) to dinner and then persuades her sister Margaret to invite Melissa back for further discussion.

Explaining her plan to Father Murphy, she tells him, “We want you to crush her!”

The gentlemanly priest is too polite, however, to argue directly with the misguided Melissa. He concedes a few of her points, and hesitantly offers other interpretations to her dogmatic pronouncements.

But he saves his harshest attacks for the sisters, after Melissa has left.

The Savannah Disputation is a brilliantly funny riff on religions of all kinds. Set in Georgia, it is particularly Southern in its tone, but it gives people of all persuasions a bone to chew on. Perhaps because the production is more than flawless.

All four of the actors are perfectly cast and impeccably directed by Cameron Watson, and the scenic design by Stephen Gifford and the properties design and set dressing by Colony Theatre resident designers MacAndMe is the archetypical expression of the fussy taste of a pair of Southern spinsters. (You even get the impression that the furnishings were originally supplied by their long-dead mother.)

The west coast premiere of The Savannah Disputation opened on June 16th and is scheduled to run Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through July 8th. But call the Colony Theatre box office at (818) 558-7000 to determine whether the show has been extended, as it well deserves to be.

The Colony Theatre is located at 555 North Third Street in Burbank, adjacent to the Burbank Town Center Mall.

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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World.  She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com