Faith provides little comfort in “The Busy World is Hushed,” currently on Invisible Theatre’s stage.
The Keith Bunin drama pulls together Hannah, an Episcopalian minister whose faith is strong but clear-eyed, her adult son, Thomas, who has lost his faith, and Brandt, the ghost writer she has hired to write a book about a newly-discovered gospel. Brandt has a faith that is riddled with questions.
Theological discussions are fast and compelling, while not particularly deep. Family dynamics are painful. And love moves in when the ghostwriter and son give way to their attraction.
Cynthia Jeffrey is too rarely on Tucson stages these days (she splits her time between Hawaii and the Old Pueblo), and that is our loss. As Hannah, she exudes a warmth and a strength that you imagine draws her flock to her. We also see in Jeffrey’s Hannah the desperation and manipulation of a mother’s love, and how that love can turn to fury.
Steve Wood continues to give strong performances on a variety of stages here. His Brandt is on edge and in pain as he copes with his father’s advanced cancer. Brandt’s Christian upbringing never fully abandoned him, and Wood makes his struggles with a God that can be cruel palpable.
Thomas is a prodigal son: He wanders away for days and months and then comes back to challenge his mother’s faith, often using the same arguments to debunk it that his mother uses to affirm it. John Noble stepped into Thomas’ shoes with confidence.
Nancy Booth Davis’ direction is clear but a tad too fast-paced. The dialogue is not given a lot of room to breath, and you really want that when intense emotions and theological arguments are involved.
While this production is solid, the play is unsatisfying. There are no rewarding arcs in the characters — they all end up where they started. There are leaps made that are jarring — one minute Brandt is rejecting Thomas’ advances, and not long after he is professing the quivering love he has for him to Hannah. We miss the build-up to such moments.
But what the script lacks is made up by a talented cast committed to the material. We say amen to that.
