Photo by Alex Clark
Next Act Theatre’s world premiere of Stephen Massicotte’s Ten Questions to Ask your Biology Teacher about Evolution is an adeptly performed exploration of the 150-year-old faith-science controversy still raging today. Biology teacher Ms. Kelly meets with major classroom disruption when her evolution unit prompts articulate creationist student, Raymond, to present her with a list of questions designed to undercut Darwinism.
Massicotte’s script clearly presents each side’s major talking points, furnishes the seeds of complex characters and provides a pleasing dose of humor, but falls short of really juicy story development. The writing is often more formal academic dialogue than true conversation between teacher and student.
Nevertheless, several choices are commendable. For example, through Ms. Kelly and Raymond’s mother, Mrs. Keller, Massicotte explores two radically different responses to personal tragedy in light of faith. The teacher essentially abandones hers, while the mother makes it the center of her life and parenting style. Also admirable, Massicotte does not force a compromise between these two women. As is so often the case in real life, their viewpoints simply do not resolve and stymied communication is the unfortunate result.
The show’s ensemble likewise makes this a production well worth seeing. As Ms. Kelly, Deborah Staples delivers a quietly impassioned performance, convincingly embodying a teacher committed to her work as she struggles to conceal personal loss. Kyle Curry’s impeccable elocution is slightly hard to believe from his 16-year-old character, but his emotional presence as a young man driven to reconcile reason with spirituality is spot on. As the broadly drawn school principal, David Cecsarini is both charmingly goofy and disturbing as the insidious voice of cowardly self-interest in education; he would much rather protect his job than grapple with controversy. Mary MacDonald Kerr shines as Raymond’s mother, Mrs. Keller, eschewing a caricature of fundamentalism for a realistic portrait of grief and genuine religious conviction.
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Through May 3 at Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St. For tickets, call 414-278-0765 or visit nextact.org.
