Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness: A User’s Guide
directed by Robbie McCauley
scenic design by Sara Ossana
video design by Mathew Provost
Boston Center for the Arts | Plaza Black Box Theatre
September – October 2016
(l-r): Veronica Anastasio Wiseman, Stephanie Burlington Daniels
(l-r): Veronica Anastasio Wiseman, Steven Barkhimer
(l-r): Veronica Anastasio Wiseman, Stephanie Burlington Daniels
(l-r): Veronica Anastasio Wiseman flanked by James Barton,
Steven Barkhimer, and herself on screens
Excerpt
GRACE
Sometimes I worry about you, Mary.
MARY
Me too. But why?
GRACE
You don’t seem to have the Lord in you.
(MARY doesn’t respond.)
GRACE
You don’t, do you?
MARY
I think I do.
I just don’t know what it means.
GRACE
Oh, you would know.
Believe me, you would know if the Lord was in you.
MARY
What do you feel?
GRACE
The Lord gets right up in your loins, Mary.
He’s in all the way.
MARY
That sounds sinful to me.
GRACE
“The word was made flesh.”
What do you think that means, Mary?
It means you have a body and your body is alive.
The Lord is embodied within us.
How is it that you don’t know that, Mary?
MARY
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die,
but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live.”
GRACE
What does that have to do with the Lord being inside you?
MARY
Romans, Chapter 8: Verse 7. I learned my lessons well, Grace.
We shouldn’t even be thinking about our bodies.
Never mind getting the Lord involved with them.
GRACE
Well, you know what? We are wasting time on this clap trap.
Precious time when we should be out saving this country from
hell fire, heathens, and ruin.
Reviews
“In such an ugly time, Meehan seems to say, let’s luxuriate in that ugliness to better understand it. . . So this play’s depiction of a suffocatingly regressive America is an earnest cri de coeur, not merely a cynical gallery of straw men.”
~ Jeremy D. Goodwin,WBUR’s The ARTery
“Daniels and Wiseman give triumphant performances that stir the political bowels of what it means to be a decent human being. ”
~ Kitty Drexel, New England Theatre Geek
“. . . While the show is heavily satirical and comedic, many of the counter-balancing explosive moments discuss and explore serious issues ( i.e. domestic abuse, racial targeting, public shootings, etc.). The plot calls into center stage the question of Christian, conservative, and liberal values on these issues. . .”
~ Nisreen Galloway, Boston Events Insider
Interview
In EDGEBoston:
“While I certainly do not consider it my good luck that a sociopath could land in The White House, my reasons for writing this play were multiplied by Trump mania. . .”
This play was supported in part by a Mars Summer Fellowship from Wheaton College. I am grateful to Christina Smith (Wheaton ’19) for assisting me on the production and for writing new text to lay over a 1950s television commercial for soap. I am especially grateful to Sleeping Weazel board members Stan Meyers and Howard Wiseman for their support of this play as well.
This play was supported in part by a Mars Summer Fellowship from Wheaton College. I am grateful to Christina Smith (Wheaton ’19) for assisting me on the production and for writing new text to lay over a 1950s television commercial for soap. I am especially grateful to Sleeping Weazel board members Stan Meyers and Howard Wiseman for their support of this play as well.
Poster design: Jessica Kuszaj
Photo credits: David Marshall