A play about pedophiles that thrives in gray areas (original) (raw)

Echo chambers and hard-line stances are for the internet, symptoms of our intractably divided politics. Theater that tells an audience what to think or, worse, congratulates their existing values is DOA — a sedative when what we need is shock therapy.

“Downstate” delivers an electrifying jolt. Studio Theatre’s outstandingly executed production, from artistic director David Muse, arrives in the capital when the impulses inspired by the knotty drama are needed most: critical thinking, tolerance for ambiguity, a more expansive rather than narrow sense of who is afforded full humanity.

The play’s subject is queasy and provocative: Surely, if we can agree on anything, classifying pedophiles as bad people would top the list. But playwright Bruce Norris brings the audience inside a shabby group home for sex offenders to ask big questions — about innocence, redemption, justice and the boundaries of sympathy — to which he proves there are no easy answers.

If you find that proposition dubious or even despicable on its face, you’re not alone. When my predecessor as Washington Post theater critic praised the play’s acclaimed off-Broadway premiere in 2022, conservatives such as Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) accused him of celebrating pedophilia. That they probably hadn’t seen the showhammered home Norris’s point: Knee-jerk responses crush complexity underfoot.

Norris uses humor to deflate the tension from the very first moment, dismissing any expectation that we’re dealing in black and white. A buttoned-up couple are perched across from a white-haired man in a motorized wheelchair, the husband (Tim Getman) reading from a prepared statement you can imagine him rehearsing in a mirror. The man he accuses of being “fundamentally evil” (Dan Daily) kindly offers him a coffee, his wife (Emily Kester) fields a call from their bored kid back at the hotel, and other occupants of the house go about their daily routines.

This was supposed to be a fiery confrontationto try toheal decades-old wounds, but mundane realities keep getting in the way. What their victims might imagine as a den of demons looks like any old mangy living room. What now?

Convicted sex offenders who have served their time must navigate society in prescribed ways, outside expanding perimeters around schools and other public spaces where children congregate. In here (the rundown ranch-home set is by Alexander Woodward), their dynamics are not unlike a family’s: There’s a house mother (Stephen Conrad Moore), who attends to everyone’s comforts with graceful resignation; a soft-spoken introvert (Richard Ruiz Henry) most often in his room with the door closed; and another (Jaysen Wright) whose bluster and ambition become a liability, particularly when he brings home a Juul-ing guest (Irene Hamilton). The eldest (Daily), whose past has come knocking, speaks with the gee-willikers gentleness of a mall Santa. A weary but compassionate cop (Kelli Blackwell) keeps regular tabs.

The play’s structure asks us to see these residents as ordinary people — who wait their turn to use a shared bathroom, worship Diana Ross movies or listen to Chopin — before revealing the monstrous behavior that landed them here. It’s tempting to say Norris goes too far in trying to humanize characters who have done despicable things, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for saying so. But what he achieves here is more sophisticated than that, tugging at the threads of our moral convictions until they’re all tangled up at our feet. There’s no condoning child sexual abuse, but Norris, a Pulitzer winner for “Clybourne Park,” uses heightened emotions around the subject to push into uneasy gray areas.

To what extent should we care about the torments experienced by abusers themselves? Quandaries like this might be dismissed out of hand were it not for precisely calibrated performances from the nimble cast. Henry, in particular, demonstrates devastating range in a brief role, escalating from quiet deference to explosive rage. Daily’s genial grandpa type and Moore’s sly, stubborn protector are the play’s odd couple: One is contrite and deferential, the other a staunch defender of their reprehensible actions. Both actors are excellent.

Muse’s direction strikes a tricky balance throughout, fomenting humor, ambivalence and occasional gasps of disgust. But the production ultimately tips the scale toward the accused. (Getman’s character comes across as a whiner earlier than he should.) This favoring of one side isn’t necessary, as the play’s argument is clear. Pitting traumas against each other is a fool’s errand and misses the broader truth: Awful things happen in life, and how we respond to them makes us who we are.

How people receive “Downstate” will depend on their taste for ethical uncertainty. It may also hinge on how deeply they’ve reflected on their own pasts, and whether they’ve found forgiveness for themselves and for others who have hurt them. It’s a rare provocation that meets you at your door — and pushes you to go further inside.

Downstate , through Feb. 16 at Studio Theatre. 2 hours 30 minutes with an intermission. studiotheatre.org.