Mass Appeal by Bill C. Davis. UC Players dinner and show at the University of Canberra Café, above the Refectory, Building 1. Fridays and Saturdays March 17 - April 8. Dinner 7pm, Show 8.30pm. Bookings: 6201 2645
This is an American Catholic comedy about a young seminarian who believes he should bluntly tell the truth - to his superiors and to the congregation. Will he make it to deacon, sexual abstinence and full priesthood? Peter Holland plays Mark Dolson with the insistence of a reformed do-gooder. Not very likeable, however sincere.
Can Father Tim Farley, Irish whisky priest, turn this raw youth into a loveable rogue like himself, trusted and adored by his congregation? Is this what he should do, knowing that popularity is achieved more by being deliberately inane rather than pontificating? Avoiding, gently covering up the truth more often helps people in crisis than exposing them directly to reality.
Davis made his reputation when this, his first play, went on Broadway in 1981, and it has played regularly since then in America and Europe, opening shortly in London. Mass Appeal was also a film starring Jack Lemmon in 1984. Its comic effect is in the neat twists and turns of dialogue between Dolson and Farley, Farley and the invisible secretary Margaret, Farley and his superior on the phone, interspersed by Farley's and Dolson's sermons. The UC production needs a bit better pacing, but the script is good enough to make its mark.
Though the play is not, to my mind, as deep and satisfying as its reputation suggests, it is an interesting exercise in switching the characters' roles. Farley learns as much about the need to tell the truth as Dolson learns about the need for empathy so that others will hear the truth you have to tell. Worth a visit, with a pleasant meal to boot.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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