Keegan’s ‘Hand to God’ is a Fistful of Devilish Fun
A troubled teen's foul-mouthed puppet leads him down an ill-begotten path in Keegan's hilarious "Hand to God."
First, let’s give a hand to the performer in Keegan Theatre’s Hand to God who spends most of Robert Askins’ raucous comedy with his fist inserted firmly up another performer in the cast.
It’s not weird, in practice. It’s puppetry, pulled off exquisitely in Josh Sticklin’s staging of the saucy Broadway hit, led here by Drew Sharpe portraying rural Texas teen Jason, and also Jason’s emotional support puppet Tyrone.
Jason and Tyrone might be of the same person, but are not of the same mind. One is a shy, soft-spoken kid, and his felt friend is a lewd, crude, blunt-force truthteller, a sock-puppet Sam Kinison. Some schism in Jason’s psyche, or of a supernatural slant, has liberated a side of him no one has ever seen, and that he didn’t know existed.
Through able ventriloquism, Sharpe distinctly brings life to both characters — who banter and argue with each other — while retaining the mystery of whether we’re witnessing madness. His dual performances, one of which is sometimes shockingly funny, embroil us in the serious story of what might really be going on with Jason.
The boy’s dad died earlier in the year, and he’s coping, barely, in a church youth group designed to give kids an outlet through puppetry. The issue with puppet Tyrone is that once Jason sets loose the character he’s created, it’s not exactly clear he can control his alter ego.
His devout Christian mom Margery (Shadia Hafiz) actually leads the youth group, and becomes convinced the devil’s gotten into Jason, or maybe Tyrone. Could the puppet be possessed?
Hafiz resoundingly hits every high-key note of this excitable mom and widow, who’s also barely coping, and has so many whackadoo developments to deal with that a devil-possessed puppet in the family might be the least of her problems.
Among those problems she didn’t herself cause are the constant unwelcome advances she’s fielding from randy Pastor Greg (Dominique Gray). Gray appears reticent about committing to the creepiness in the Pastor’s boundary-pushing, but Hafiz supplies enough fire for the both of them.
She makes Margery’s monumental emotional breakdown in the Pastor’s office into one of the play’s non-puppet-related highlights, along with the woman’s wildly inappropriate, rough-sex seduction of the other teen boy in puppet practice, Timmy (Jordan Brown).
Brown’s Southern accent is sketchy, but his Timmy captures the spirit of the aggressively horny teen who’s all-too-eagerly seduced. “This is not how I pictured it,” he exclaims.
To the delight of the audience, just about everybody in this church does wrong all the time. And, while tackling taboos with teens can be touchy, doing it with puppets is reliably silly in a way that allows the play to incisively explore the darker side of what goes on in some church basements — not just puppet sex. Although, there is puppet sex, be warned.
Practically no one’s innocence survives unscathed, not even that of sweet Jessica (Hannah Taylor), the girl in the youth group, and a love interest for Jason, if he can keep Tyrone out of the way. Mankind’s struggle in the divide between good and evil is eternal, Tyrone tells us at the top of the show.
The opening monologue cleverly sets up the puppet from the start as an entity unto itself, attached to Jason, yet somehow free to speak its own mind. Sharpe’s excellent puppet control constitutes just one aspect of the production’s controlled approach to presenting these chaotic lives.
Revolving on a turntable stage between scenes and locations, the play keeps pace with these messy Texans, always landing back at home in set designer Matthew J. Keenan’s wholesome church basement. Amid the beanbag chairs, and feel-good slogans like “Be a light for all to see” posted around the room, the shelves are lined with stuffed animals, watching and waiting, an inanimate army ready to set some other broken kid free.
Hand to God (★★★★☆) runs through March 2 at The Keegan Theatre, 1742 Church St. NW. Tickets are $54, with discount options available. Visit www.keegantheatre.com.
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