Having seen the original Broadway production, I must admit that Agnes of God lacked, on this viewing, the impact it once had. I'd like to think that's because the suspense wasn't there for me, whereas the play's mystery is gripping as a first experience. Many in the audience with me obviously had just that. I wish I'd been able to share it, but the answers to the mystery seemed just too obvious this time. I refer to how, in a contemplative order of nuns, young, unworldly Sister Agnes became pregnant -- and is she guilty of killing her baby?
Starting when a court appoints a psychiatrist, Dr. Livingstone, to determine if Agnes is sane and should stand trial, another outcome becomes a question: Will the doctor, a resentful apostate Catholic who represents science and reason, "win" Agnes in a struggle with Mother Superior, for whom Agnes is mystically connected to God? In the present production, this contest becomes primary. I might easily have concluded, especially owing to the intensity of Kate Alexander's Livingstone, that the play is hers, not Agnes'. And maybe I'd have been right. Not that Kathleen Butler lacks bite as Mother, fighting for Agnes' soul in the guise of guardianship of her body. Problem is, Butler never convinces that Mother is religious, only that she's sure Agnes is. Meredith Mitchell confirms that, without undercutting the mental instability she owes to abuse by her biological mother. Mitchell/Agnes' hysterical recollections under hypnosis fully express pain without histrionic overkill. I kept anticipating her throwing herself up one of the backdrop's curved doors, trying to escape.
To director Richard Hopkins' credit, he has avoided imitating past productions in this and in ways not straightforward. For daring, there's some unusual movie score music framing strains of the sacred. Also, the nuns' habits are grey and pink but, happily, not of the shocking type.
