Tempesta, Bowers, Bolyard, Peters and Lyons
About half-way through the second act of Tom Dudzick’s 90-minute, two-act play Miracle on South Division Street, a character makes a timely observation: “It’s not supposed to make sense—it’s religion.” That pretty much sums up the play and its explorations of faith, family, and the reasons we believe what we want to believe about both.
You can see for yourself this weekend, when By the Sea Productions in Morro Bay presents a staged reading of Miracle for three performances only September 12-14.
It’s the kind of gentle comedy that works well as a staged reading: a simple set, no complicated props or scenery, four actors, and a good director (in this case a very good director—Nicolette Tempesta) who keeps the actors focused on their characters and the line readings focused equally on explication and expressing honest emotion.
Janice Peters plays Clara, the matriarch of the very Catholic Nowak family of Buffalo, New York. She and her three grown children have always believed they were special because of a miraculous visit the Virgin Mary supposedly paid to Clara’s father in 1942, commemorated by a 17-foot-high statue and shrine that attracts visitors, donations, and requests for miracles to this day.
Of course this set-up is ripe for challenge (on a factual as well as a religious basis), and that comes in the form of eldest daughter Ruth (a solid Elizabeth Bolyard), who gathers her siblings together in her mother’s kitchen for a truth-telling session.
The second act reveals that there is a lot more to the story than her mother, brother (Topher Lyons) and sister (Andrea Bowers) could ever imagine. Lyons and Bowers are great at letting their inner thoughts and emotions gradually light up their faces as adults often acting like kids again while in their mother’s orbit. And Peters as their mother is expert at expressing the difficult feelings her character must process as secrets are revealed.
In the end, Miracle is a heartfelt story of miracles, but not the showy kind. With a little humor—and a little faith that we can all accept people for who they are, where they are—this simple staged reading expresses a truth that a person of any religion can embrace.