Yet many others saw a theatrical mismatch between a finely tuned book and an overwrought play. And some critics, especially those with a theological bent, like Charles Austin of Religion News Service, did enjoy the religious speculations that the drama prompted. Yes, "The Testament of Mary" garnered a Tony nomination for best play, but that came off almost as a consolation prize. That's what killed Gifford's reimagining of pioneering evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, which the Times called "generic and dull." Whether it was good enough theater, in the end, may be the real issue. I think we have a right and a duty to put on good theater, and I think we did that." It would have harmed the integrity of the production and performance. "You could have marketed the show to Catholics and others as'the most shocking thing you will ever see,' and I'm glad we didn't do that. "I wanted this play to be a theatrical experience rather than a culture war over religion," Toibin said.
But in a post-mortem interview with The New York Times, the author said he refused to try to spark controversy just for the sake of ticket sales. In fact, Toibin himself wondered whether his take on the Virgin Mary simply wasn't sufficiently provocative. And there was the award-winning play "Doubt," which dealt with the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and was adapted into an equally acclaimed 2008 movie. Moreover, there are plenty of controversial shows about religion that do quite well on Broadway.Įxhibit A: the hit musical "Book of Mormon," a barbed parody about Mormon missionaries that is still going strong on Broadway and on the road. On the other hand, beyond the Catholic League and a small knot of protesters outside the Walter Kerr Theatre, "The Testament of Mary" actually didn't spark much in the way of protests-or the valuable buzz that comes with it. "Quite frankly, there aren't enough people who want to spend their evenings watching a dark performance about a fanciful Virgin Mary who rejects the divinity of her son," Donohue said. So it was no surprise that the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, who blasted the play when it opened, cheered its closing and chalked it up to a lack of reverence for the subject matter.
When it comes to the success or failure of dramas about sacred Christian stories, however, the debate usually comes down to the question of whether the play was too controversial, or not controversial enough.Ĭritics of "The Testament of Mary" certainly thought the play, adapted from author Colm Toibin's 2012 novel of the same title, was blasphemous because it imagined an aging Mary venting her anger about her son's death and voicing her doubts about the stories his followers were telling about him.
So what went wrong with "Mary"? In the quirky business of the theater, there are always many factors at work, and as Sarah Pulliam Bailey wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week, it is true that a number of religiously themed shows on Broadway have indeed tanked - Kathie Lee Gifford's "Scandalous" among them, late last year-yet she also cited others that have done quite well. After all, biblically themed shows are all the rage on television and especially on cable the recent History Channel miniseries " The Bible" generated huge ratings, and a host of shows and films are trying to explore-and perhaps exploit-similar territory.
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