Review: HAND TO GOD Is Devilishly Clever at City Theatre

Though advertising and the initial premise of Robert Askins's pitch-black comedy (more of a tragicomedy, really) HAND TO GOD may make it seem like Sesame Street meets AVENUE Q, the truth is a little more complex. Under Tracy Brigden's careful, multi-layered direction, the end product turns out to be something more like Ryan Murphy directing Tennessee Williams with a puppet thrown in. After all, AVENUE Q begins with a shiny, peppy theme song. HAND TO GOD begins with a malevolent puppet, devoid of puppeteer, giving a Clive Barker-esque monologue on the origins of The Devil and the societal urges that make a demonic influence necessary even without a benevolent opposing force. It's heavy stuff, made lighter by the obscene Muppet spouting it.

Tyrone, the aforementioned puppet, is the arts-and-crafts creation of timid, troubled teen Jason (Nick LaMedica), a gifted puppeteer whose creation takes on a life of its own- is Tyrone simply Jason's repressed id? Is he possessed by The Devil, as many characters think? Is there even a difference? Tyrone, intended to feature in a church-basement puppet show sponsored by lonely, needy Pastor Greg (Tim McGeever) and run by Jason's mother Margery (Lisa Velten Smith, in the role of a lifetime), begins benevolently enough, singing Bible songs to the amusement of puppetry enthusiast Jessica (Maggie Carr). But as Act 1 goes on, Tyrone grows more forceful, more obscene and more openly malevolent, attacking his owner and standing up to doltish rebel Timmy (Michael Greer). And then... and then Tyrone goes off the hook and the whole devil thing starts up.

Kudos must be given to both LaMedica in his tricky dual role, and puppet designer Stephanie Shaw, who built Tyrone as a hand-and-rod puppet (as opposed to the sock puppet based design used in the original New York run), a style immediately recognizable to anyone who has ever seen a Jim Henson production or its derivatives. Though Tyrone does look a little more professionally constructed than something a messed-up teen would make out of materials in a church basement, this mild suspension of disbelief allows for Tyrone to take on a fully realized, fully visible life of his own. As he gains agency, roughing up his owner and subduing his opponents, Tyrone sometimes seems even more alive than Jason does. Maggie Carr's Jessica, beautifully underplayed, is the perfect foil to Jason/Tyrone, especially when her own puppet creation takes the stage. Michael Greer, in the tertiary teen role of Timmy, has the broadest of the three "youth" roles, swaggering and swearing and ignoring responsibility and sound thinking at every possible turn like the horndog juvenile delinquent he is.

But the showiest role of all goes not to the demonic puppet or the sex-crazed adolescent troublemaker. Lisa Velten Smith's Margery is the perfect fusion of Blanche DuBois, Diana Goodman and that mother from THE BABADOOK, swinging rapidly from emotional extreme to emotional extreme. Desperately struggling for a place in the world after her husband's death, Margery has latched on obsessively to the puppet ministry class, even though it means dodging the insistent, banal affection of Pastor Greg. Tim McGeever walks a fine line as Greg, taking a character that could be uncomfortably manipulative and sexually aggressive and running in the exact opposite direction. It's uncomfortable and vaguely nauseating to see the lengths to which this powerless, sexless, pathetically antiseptic figure will go in his attempts to get even just a hug from Margery, who is deeply repelled by the pastor's persistent plays for attention.

Although it's not too difficult to imagine the central plot and how it will likely go, HAND TO GOD throws in enough twists and turns, unexpected character developments and hilarious or shocking moments that no one can get too comfortable while watching. The central question of demonic possession, psychological outburst or somewhere in between is never fully resolved; in fact, a last-scene monologue paints another, somewhat unsettling, possiblility entirely. Not every show can balance as delicately between comedy, tragedy, drama and humor as this one does. But, hand to god, HAND TO GOD delivers.

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