Playwright: Chuck O'Connor. At: Polarity Ensemble Theatre at the Greenhouse, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets: 773-404-7336; www.petheatre.com; $25. Runs through: Oct. 5
Sister Clare Connelly probably wasn't the first teenage girl to flee her squabbling parents house for the perceived safety of a cloistered community, nor was Father Peter Lentine likely the first boy to seek the priesthood as an escape from adolescent confusion. We might also have encountered alcoholics like patriarch Jimmy Connelly, who drinks to hide what's really troubling him, or combat veterans like young Charlie Connelly, obsessed with assuaging his guilt for past transgressions through acts of penance.
Once upon a time, these measures might have provided, if not precisely a cure, then palliation for the problems of this devoutly Catholic family. Discipline being a reliable method of imposing order upon a disorderly world, all the Roman church required of its flock for many centuries was fealty expressed in observation of its ritesbut Chuck O'Conner's parable is set in the disquieting milieu of 1968 Detroit, where congregations already reeling under social upheaval struggled with the Second Vatican Council's exhortation to introspection, pursuant to forging a personal understanding of their faith. For sinners accustomed to receiving absolution from external agents, this call to look into their own hearts rendered inefficacious yet another subterfuge concealing whatever unspeakable shame nagged their consciences.
What remains unchanged in the liturgy of western drama are the beneficial effects that confession bestows upon the soul. Clare has been granted leave from the convent to care for her recovering Da, but proximity to her irascible sire only exacerbates her anger over his alleged mistreatment of her late mother and rejection of her brother. Peter offers what comfort his Jesuit humanitarian-relativist theology can extend, but not until prodigal son Charlie returns, bringing long-buried testimony from distant Connelly kin regarding the lineage of the siblings and the source of Jimmy's bitterness can these pilgrims who walk in darkness confront the deception and misunderstanding at the roots of their unhappiness to embark on the forgiveness that precedes healing.
O'Conner's narrative style hearkens to early 20th-century literary conventions, spooling out its exposition a bit too tidily and delaying his moment of peripeteia a bit too long. Director Richard Shavzin and his cast, however, give full attention to the intimate details lending plausibility, within the context of its author's universe, to each character's decisions ( even including a chaste kiss of peace or two ). Anyway, in an age when people's actions are increasingly ruled by impetuous expedience, a story concluding with wayward human beings discovering their true vocations after searching their misguided motives is commendable, certainly.