Faith and Commerce, Precariously Balanced
Charles IsherwoodJune 11, 2012: Burdens are just about equally distributed among the eclectic characters in “Storefront Church,” John Patrick Shanley’s unwieldy but affecting new play about a handful of Bronx dwellers whose lives become tangled in unexpected ways when a mortgage goes sour. With the exception of one willfully oblivious bank executive, the men and women who find themselves gathering for a church service at the play’s conclusion all feel a measure of sorrow from the hard compromises life demands — but perhaps also a sense that burdens are lightened when shared. The play, which opened Monday night at the Atlantic Theater Company in a vividly acted production directed by Mr. Shanley, sometimes bogs down in windy debates about faith, justice and morality. The grinding last scene of the first act, to cite an egregious example, could surely have been finessed into better shape by a director with a little distance from the sometimes overripe oratory.
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