In Leslye Headland’s new play “Cult of Love,” which had its New York City premiere Thursday at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theater, Christmas Eve is the big excuse for the Dahl family to sing whenever a nasty remark or look threatens the holiday spirit.
But even the von Trapp family never sang this much. And the Dahls don’t just sing. Each plays a musical instrument too. There’s Mom (Mare Winningham), who plays the guitar, and there’s Dad (David Rasche), who plays the piano. Other instruments include a harmonica, a mouth organ, maracas and a triangle. We can give thanks to the baby Jesus that there are no bongo drums.
No surprise, the Episcopal priest husband James (Christopher Lowell) of the daughter Diana Dahl Bennett (Shailene Woodley) fits right into this Hallmark card picture. Even the drug-addict son Johnny (Christopher Sears) has a lot of singing to get off his chest when he finally arrives, very late for dinner, at the family farmhouse in Connecticut.
Only two members of this brood appear less than charmed by all the vocalizing, and tellingly, they’re both in-laws. They include the Jewish wife Rachel (Molly Bernard) of the son Mark Dahl (Zachary Quinto) and the wife Pippa (Roberta Colindrez) of the daughter Evie Dahl (Rebecca Henderson). And Johnny brings a female companion, Loren (Barbie Ferreira), who remains bemused because, unlike the two female in-laws, she hasn’t had to sit through this song-fest ritual in years past.
Clearly the title of Headland’s 100-minute one-act play is ironic.
The priest and his wife are a bit baffling at first, because this Episcopalian couple reacts more like white Christian nationalists when it comes to the pink lesbian couple in the room. Headland resolves James and Diana’s strange brand of religion late in the play. Until she does, the conflict between the straights and the gays creates lots of arguments and recriminations. And when Evie and Pippa finally tell off the two bigots, the audience at the Helen Hayes Theater flaps their hands right on cue like Pavlovian chickens. Broadway playwrights know how to play to the chorus.
All the singing is supposed to signal a happy childhood that went very wrong somewhere on the path to adulthood. The problem is, almost all of the characters are types, if not downright clichés: the parents (cuddly, with blinders on), the Christians (blessed, but bigoted), the drug addicts (irresponsible, but lively), the lesbians (angry and pissed off) and the Jew (also angry and pissed off). That leaves Zachary Quinto to play the one character that’s supposed to be the play’s moral center but nearly topples over from all the angst Headland gives him. Mark Dahl studied to be a priest but switched to law, and in the process turned into an atheist who gets to deliver a perfectly dreadful speech about the existence of God in the play’s penultimate scene.
There is one big plus though: Having seen John Lee Beatty’s living room set with its humongous Christmas tree and attendant lights, you can skip visiting Rockefeller Center this season.
Trip Cullman directs.