Interview: Sarah Stiles Is the Voice of Reason in HAND TO GOD

As Hand to God opens, three teenagers gather in a church basement to rehearse a puppet show for the congregation. Concrete walls are adorned with brightly colored posters of Christian aphorisms. Bookshelves teeming with toys and stuffed animals complete the G-rated setting.

Margery (Geneva Carr), the group leader and mother of Jason (Steven Boyer), encourages the trio as they organize their show. Her son, having a tough time dealing with his father's recent death, is not thrilled with participating. Timothy (Michael Oberholtzer) is besotted with Margery. Pastor Greg (Marc Kudisch) has his own secrets. Jessica (Sarah Stiles) reluctantly agrees to join the production.

By the time the play ends, the audience will have run the gamut of Motion Picture Association ratings as the puppets erupt with the unfiltered emotions of the young people whose arms they inhabit. The teenagers may be emotionally blocked, but their puppets are unhinged, and their X-rated, blasphemous outbursts, sort of a mash-up of AVENUE Q and THE BOOK OF MORMON, are outrageously funny.

"It's two hours of a roller-coaster ride that's hilarious, thought-provoking and amusing," Stiles said. "It's also an extreme example of when you're experiencing grief and have no outlet for expressing it."

Jason "lost his father and has these huge, giant feelings and has no way to communicate them," Stiles said. But when Jason slides his left arm into the sleeve of his puppet, named Tyrone, something very close to all hell breaks loose.

After a wildly successful run Off Broadway, the original cast and creative team are now in a larger theater, but, surprisingly, with less stage space. "The playing space actually did get smaller," Stiles said. But the set is magical and so surprising.

"We're doing this play with whatever the venue and it's different and much simpler," Stiles said. "It's the same little group telling the same story in a more in-depth way.

"It hasn't felt overwhelming," she said. "The whole ride is super steady and we're confident." When the Off Broadway production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre ended, there was the usual end-of-run grief and uncertainty to contend with. "It's over and you look for something else," Stiles said.

In this case, the team didn't have to disperse.

"But man, we just figured out who these characters are and we all kind of knew it wasn't over," Stiles said. "This is still a story to be told and it hasn't finished its journey yet. It's a really important piece and we didn't know we were going to be on Broadway until last summer. The buzz was so great."

It's hard to describe Hand to God without giving away some breath-taking surprises.

Jessica helps Jason express himself in original and creative ways. In one scene, Tyrone and her own puppet, Jolene, engage in acts that Punch and Judy never dreamed of.

The biggest difference between the Broadway production at the Booth Theater and the Off Broadway venue is the scope of the audience, Stiles said. "The amount of people seeing it at one time is certainly much bigger than the Lortel," she said. "I remember we had an invited rehearsal and the Booth was half-filled and the roar from the audience was so wild, it was incredible.

"We've been fortunate to have had a number of packed houses and the kind of energy from the audience is wild," Stiles said. "It's a pretty powerful feeling to have that kind of energy coming at you. We were so jazzed up we couldn't sleep. Steven would ask 'Did you sleep?' and we'd all say 'no.' It's like a drug; it's hard to come off it."

Audience feedback colors each performance, she added. "From the first laugh we can tell the temperature of the audience, whether they find it hilarious, are offended by it or shocked."

Stiles views her character, Jessica, as earth mother, the voice of reason in a room of dysfunction. "I have to be honest: I think that playing her has made me a better listener, more competent. She's so smart and unafraid, curious compassionate and reasonable."

Stiles thinks the play has resonated so well because of its original content and voice of the playwright (Robert Askins). "It's a standout because it's unapologetic. I think it's true to life; he's not trying to sugar coat anything with a pretty bow on it. It's raw and real and makes people think about faith. Audiences may be shocked, but there's so much between the words too. It doesn't get flowery with things; it's raw on the page."

Jessica's relationship with Jason is complicated, but she never loses faith in him. "She sees that Jason is going through a lot, and she encourages Jason to concentrate on the smaller things in his life, like homecoming."

Another challenge for the actors is keeping a straight face. "We try very hard not to play for the joke ever, just play the truth," she said. "Rehearsing the sex scene we'd just do the dirtiest things with the puppets," she said.

Stiles was drawn to theater when she was in middle school. "I did school plays and my teacher contacted my mom and said 'Get her into theater,' and so I did theater in summer camp, then community productions."

A native of New Hampshire, Stiles recalled her "hippie" upbringing. "We lived in the woods, a crunchy granola kind of thing," Stiles said. "We had crystals under our beds, and my mother does Reiki.I feel like I'm finally getting to do pieces that move me as an artist. I want to be known as an artist who creates. I love this creating. I want to do it for the rest of my life."

Hand to God is playing at the Booth Theatre, 222 West 45th Street on Shubert Alley.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus