Jacob Rice

October 27th, 2016

Contemporary U.S. Drama
Cover Letter
The process of writing this essay has not been easy. However, I cant deny the enjoyment
I found while writing it. Because I have seen the play that Im writing about twice, while
researching and watching interviews about the production, it reminded me of how much I
enjoyed it as an audience member. To then go an analyze it and hear what the playwright has to
say about the play, as well as what the actors have to say, it gave me such a deeper understand of
the play. I admit, when I left the theater the first night I saw Hand to God, I didnt really mull
over what the play was about. It wasnt until the second time that I saw the plays beautiful and
intelligent nuances that made the play truly spectacular.
This writing process was the most difficult because of the way we had to use Fuchs
essay. The essay gives so many examples and ways to look at a play that it was difficult for me to
zero in on just one. I believe I chose a strong lens to view the play through using Fuchs essay
because the lens has such a powerful impact on the play itself. However, I think the biggest
hurdle I faced with this assignment was having too much freedom. I seem to do better when I am
giving a specific set of questions to analyze a play with and that way I have a road map for my
essay. In this instance, I felt like so much of how the essay would turn out was up to me and it
left me in a place where I felt lost with where to start and which path to take. However, I think
this helped me as a writing and I look forward to my critiques so I can work to improve this
essay.

Hand to God
The play Hand to God, written by Robert Askins, is dictated by the social world the play
is set in. The characters navigate their world based on the social norms and expectations that are
set before them. Using Fuchs Visit to a Small World, we can look at the play in terms of the
social world it presents. The world of the play tells the characters that they need to behave a
certain way to please the public world. Isolated individuals navigate through this world and the
only way they can reach rehabilitation, which is what every character is looking for in this play,
is through one another. They need each other but they have such a hard time with being honest
with one another that they get matched off in conflicting pairs. The strongest conflicting pair is
the Jason and his mother, Margery.
Less than a year ago, Margerys husband, Jasons father, passed away from a heart attack.
The sudden death kept the two together, but separated them emotionally and mentally. This play
deals with rehabilitating from a loss of a loved one, but the social world of the play puts forth
that the solution can be found through the church. So Margery spends lots of time at the church,
she is even the teacher of a Christian Ministry puppet group at the church, the members of which
are teenagers including her son, a girl named Jessica, and a rambunctious boy named Timmy.
Throughout the play the characters are all looking for something to be healed within them.
Because of the social world that the play is set in, the route of rehabilitation these characters
travel down is the incorrect route, until Jasons puppet, Tyrone, comes to life. He is satanic,
humorous, and ends up being what really heals the family that is Jason and Margery. Although
the puppet causes many problems, the blunt honesty that he evokes from the characters in this
church annex are what causes them to actually begin to mend.

I find it especially interesting that the social world of the play dictates the characters so
strongly that the major conflict and setting of the play is set in a church annex, but at the conflict
resolution comes from a satanic puppet. The physical world of the play is changed immensely in
Act 2, when the annex becomes a demonic cave-like room, with upside down crosses painted on
the walls and a hello kitty stuffed animal stuck to the wall with pencils through her eyes. The
world of the play is turned completely upside down. However, the true confronting and healing
that the characters need somehow can only be achieved in a world that looks like this, instead of
the perfect, orderly, do what youre told church world that they existed in perviously. Jason, the
controller of the puppet, resists that he has has any actual control over the puppet. Tyrone, the
puppet, has a mind and voice of his own and becomes a major character in himself that motivates
the major conflict and plot of this play. We forget though, that it is Jason. Everything that Tyrone
is saying and doing is because of Jason. Jasons inner truths are revealed through this puppet,
which is the only way he knows how to confront and deal with his plethora of issues. Because
the social world has such a strong impact on this play, Fuchs paragraph of the social world of
play in Visit to a Small World is a very informing way to look at Hand to God.
The play was originally conceived and produced Off-Broadway in October 2011 at the
Ensemble Studio Theater where it had a limited, but extended, run. It then returned to OffBroadway in early 2014 at MCC Theater which lead to the play being transferred to Broadway a
year later at the Booth Theater where it played 26 previews and 311 performances (League).
When discussing the plays journey to Broadway, the playwright Robert Askins confessed the
energy around the first several productions was such that it just felt like something special.
Steven Boyer lead the cast as Jason/Tyrone and Geneva Carr made her Broadway debut as

Margery. Steven Boyer was nominated for a Tony Award for his role, as well as the play earning
a nomination for Best Play (League).
The original Broadway production, which I was lucky enough to see twice, was
highlighted with an incredible set. It presented itself as a box set but has graceful transitions as
walls moved to reveal Jasons bedroom, the church bathroom, and the playground of the church.
The set does a phenomenal job of being functional while also being impressive and building a
strong world for these characters to navigate through. The strongest part of the set was the
change in Act 2 that I discussed earlier when Jason/Tyrone basically turn the annex of the church
into a basement of hell. It shocked the audience but we were there for the characters, at the edge
of our seats to see how they would navigate without their perfect organized world. We, as an
audience, are faced with the same unique challenges the characters are which puts us in a very
vulnerable position. The comedy brings us comfort, the subject matter, the blunt honesty, the sex,
and violence jolts us in a thought provoking manner. Steven Boyer, in an interview for the
BUILD Series, surprisingly admits Somebody fucked up, what are we doing here? He
advocates for more shows like Hand to God on Broadway, but makes a point to discuss that
[Hand to God] is so out of the box. Its just not what tourists expect when they go see a play.
They dont expect to laugh their asses off and be challenged. Broadway is usually kind of
comforting. This is not. I agree, as an audience member I was laughing the whole way through,
but I never felt safe. I never felt like I could park my brain at the door and just laugh. The subject
matter, the writing, the innovative set, always kept your mind at work, half the time to make sure
you dont miss a joke, and half the time to always stay alert for the next raunchy thing to happen.
Hand to God found a middle ground between challenging and entertaining. That place can be

difficult for plays to find sometimes, especially those that deal with religion. However, the
possessed puppets comedy kept us laughing enough to move through the possibly offensive
religion material.
The play was received with acclaim, from its first production at the Ensemble Studio
Theater all the way to Broadway. Steven Boyer admits that plays like Hand to God do their
limited run Off Broadway and then never return. For the play to get a second Off Broadway run,
and then a transfer to Broadway where many people thought it had a real chance at winning the
Tony Award for Best Play was astounding. But if you asked any critic from the original Off
Broadway production, I doubt theyd be surprised. I was lucky enough to uncover that Charles
Isherwood, a critic from the New York Times, wrote reviews of both the Ensemble Studio
Theater production, and the Broadway production. Although I am focusing on the Broadway
production, Isherwood applauds the original production with Although the comedy is pushed to
fairly absurd levels, the play never abandons the terra firma of naturalism (Isherwood 2011).
something I agree with whole heartedly. Sometimes the comedy of the play was absurd that if
you werent engrossed in the play, one might question whether these events could happen or not,
but once again, the world of the play lives by its own rules, as Fuch says in her essay. However, I
think Askins decision to ground the play so much in naturalism was imperative in keeping the
comedy real. In the Broadway review, Isherwood praised the plays transformation from OffBroadway and Steven Boyers growth with a thunderous applause by complimenting Mr.
Boyers performance as Jason is tender and touching, his performance as Tyrone outlandish and
hilarious; put them together and you have that rarely seen (although often hailed) acting
achievement: a true tour de force (Isherwood 2015). A remark like that from a critic is not often

given, but was well deserved. There were times when I watched the play where I felt that Tyrone
was a completely different entity. This actor brought to life not one, but two characters. In
addition, Isherwood also admits as I watched the play this year, for the third time, I found
myself peering more closely into its psychological depths, and finding in it a weird mirror of our
unsettling times (Isherwood 2015). This was a poignant remark on Hand to God that I couldnt
articulate myself. The play is like a black mirror. We are laughing because it seems distant, we
are uncomfortable because we know its very close to home.
This play fits in contemporary drama in the way it builds off of its predecessors. Askins
was smart to set the play in the south because many of the highly regarded plays set themselves
in the south. A Streetcar Named Desire, August: Osage County, and many others find themselves
set in the south because the social and physical world of the south is so unique to that region. It
prevails itself through all of American drama. The idea of a demonic puppet is not far off from
Avenue Q and it has become a trend in contemporary theatre to dissolve comedy, crudeness, and
darkness into a single character. Tyrone says things that drop our jaws, but at the same time, we
know what hes saying is true. It puts us in an uncomfortable position, one that is found most
recently in contemporary theatre. As I mentioned before from the interview, the play is not to
entertain, its to challenge the audience. This is a major trend of contemporary works. I also think
the mirror of dysfunctional family is often seen in contemporary works. However, overall I think
the innovative set, the astounding writing, and the way the play challenges its audience with a
demonic sock puppet and helpless characters who just want to mend puts Hand to God in a
rightful place among the great works of contemporary theatre.

Works Cited
Askins, Robert. Hand to God. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2015. Print.
Fuchs, Elinor. "EF's Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play." Theater, vol. 34 no.
2, 2004, pp. 4-9. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/169652. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Isherwood, Charles. "Pent-Up Feelings Set Free by Puppets." The New York Times. 11 Nov.
2011. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Isherwood, Charles. "THEATER Review: Hand to God Features a Foul-Talking Puppet." The
New York Times, 7 Apr. 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
"Rob Askins and Steven Boyer on "Hand To God"" Interview by Adam Feldman. Youtube. AOL
BUILD, 28 July 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
League, The Broadway. "IBDB.com." Hand to God Broadway Play Original. 2016. Web. 28
Oct. 2016.