Theater Review / Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited.

A highly successful gender bending coup

By Joanna Brady

“It’s a difficult play,” Theatre XP director Bob Bowersox told me before the performance of The Sunset Limited on Sunday night. “But as everyone knows, I don’t do easy plays.” After seeing this play and I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, I would say he’s right on both counts.

The Sunset Limited is a brilliant, character-driven play about a problem that is, sadly, becoming increasingly common.

Master playwright Cormac McCarthy originally wrote The Sunset Limited for two men, but Bowersox had the vision to turn it into a play about two women. With veteran actor Dame Glenda Jackson currently playing King Lear on Broadway, this kind of gender bending took no stretch of the imagination to accept. McCarthy gave his permission and wholehearted approval to go with two women.

photo / L. Blackburn

And two excellent actors they are. Bowersox cast Melody G. Moore as Ms. White, a privileged, educated, but very depressed atheist who sees the world in nihilistic black. Tammy Shanley is Ms. Black, a back hills underprivileged Southern woman who sees life through the lens of evangelical light and fervor, is devoted to God, to Jesus, and reading the Bible—a conversion she made while serving time in prison.

What brings this unlikely pair together is Ms. White’s suicide attempt that morning. We learn that she tried to leap in front of a train called ‘The Sunset Limited’ and ended up in the arms of Ms. Black. The entire play takes place immediately afterwards in the tenement apartment of Ms. Black, where Black tries to talk sense and old-time religion to Ms. White, a sophisticated professor with a dazzling vocabulary.

The door is locked at Ms. Black’s apartment, so Ms. White can’t leave. She is then subjected to an attempt by Black to have her choose life, read the ‘good book’, opt for belief in God, and to accept the redemption and strength that comes with faith. White assumes a passive role in the beginning, waiting out the tirade so she can leave. But gradually she is drawn into the fray and her argument for nihilism gains strength as she reinforces her acceptance of darkness and her yearning for death. The afterlife is just a pack of lies for White and life is a futile joke. The only thing to do about it, she argues, is to end it all.

These are big issues. Life and death. As their discussion becomes deeper and more philosophical, there is a power shift and Black realizes she is outclassed. She simply doesn’t have the vocabulary or skill to debate her atheistic opponent. At one point, she implores God, “Lord, if you wanted me to help her, why’d you give her all them big words?” A good question. This kind of sophistry between two people of such disparate educational and socio-economic levels isn’t a fair fight.

Shanley’s role of Black is persistently persuasive, much like a seduction. She is the vociferous bible saleswoman, the one upholding the power of life, and she performs brilliantly. Her range in the piece vacillates from a strong to a weak position when, in a meltdown, she almost reaches the point of losing faith. Moore’s interpretation of her character, the depressed Ms. Black, is also excellent, and consistent throughout; her faith in her own arguments remaining strong. If anything, she redoubles her denial of the hereafter and its author as she reinforces the power of darkness. The role is a steady one, never wavering. And she makes it clear as she is finally allowed to leave that nothing is going to change her views.

The whole piece is compelling, and the language powerful and intense. Both Moore and Shanley play off each other like well-matched tennis players, keeping us engaged until the very end.

Yes, it is a difficult play, about a difficult decision. Thought-provoking, and beautifully executed.

The Sunset Limited will run through June 20. For tickets to The Sunset Limited, call 302 540-6102.

The play marks the beginning of the Key West Summer Stage that takes place from June 3 through 26. For the full schedule, which includes productions from Theatre XP, The Red Barn, the Waterfront Playhouse, and the Studios of Key West, Go to keywestsummerstage.com or call 302 540-6102.

(Joanna Brady is a local writer, author of the historical Key West novel, The Woman at the Light, published by St. Martin’s Press)

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