A Case for the Existence of God
Coalmine Theatre, Toronto
A Case for the existence of God by Samuel D Hunter is a reflection on fatherhood and friendship. While the former is the glue that underpins the story, the latter and the power of friendship is the powerful message of the play.
Ryan and Keith meet in Keith’s office after running into each other at daycare drop-off. Both are fathers of young daughters, struggling with the day-to-day of fatherhood but also bigger issues around their role as fathers…and whether they will be allowed to continue being fathers. Hunter poses a big existential question in that way: ‘Who gets to continue being a father? What decisions lead you there? Who gets to decide?’
We don’t hear from men about fatherhood that often. Or at least on the complexities of it. Hunter writes that well, with neither man being a perfect father (whatever that might be) nor having their daughters in ideal circumstances, or at least the circumstances they would have picked. The examination of what it means to be a good father that Hunter paints becomes even more powerful; it becomes about being your best with what life throws at you. Often, too, conversations about fathers are reductive and dismissive, almost compared to what mothers do. I do not dismiss the role of mothers or their stories, but hearing exclusively from fathers’ perspectives offers a powerful insight to those with or without children.
In this production, Noah Reid and Mazin Elsadig bring powerful emotion to discussions of fatherhood and more. Elsadig is reserved and softer with his character, Keith. He plays him as quietly reserved for much of the play so that when he opens up or emotion spills over it becomes all the more powerful. Reid is bubbly and extroverted with Ryan, leaning into the comedy of the role in earlier scenes, which again adds weight to the darker moments. He can flick the emotion on a line, offering a deceptively funny delivery that betrays the hurt or darkness under what Ryan is saying.
The direction from Ted Dykstra adds to this. A fast-paced back and forth between the characters with lightning-fast scene changes. This has the effect of time passing extraordinarily fast and at once not at all. The entire play is inside Keith’s office for much of the first act, and they could have been there an hour or six months, which feels like an analogy for parenthood and life. He also makes good use of the fixed set, breaking the characters out to front facing when they aren’t in the office, not changing the set at all but taking us out to another place, another moment, without moving at all. Again, this feels like a powerful analogy. Only at the end does the furniture move, and the space takes on the identity of the rock layer and backdrop of Nick Blais’ beautifully simple but effective set.
Each character, Ryan and Keith, also brilliantly represent their ‘demographic’ for want of a better word, authentically and honestly. It's fair to say that Ryan is a working-class man, a troubled legacy of working-class people. He’s trying his best to do right by the next generation in his daughter and to improve his life as best he can. Working Class stories are difficult to navigate- and for those of us from a Working Class background, often difficult to watch too- they often rely on either demonisation or betterment fantasies. They either make working-class characters some underdog shiny hero or a villain. Instead of just…people. Ryan is, in the best way…just people. He’s a man with struggles; he’s not a wealthy man or the most educated man. But it’s so refreshing to see a Working Class character’s background not define him. It also shouldn’t have to be said but not seeing a working-class person made to have a specific kind of accent or ‘look’ about them is also refreshing.
Ryan’s story too talks of the honest struggles of being Working Class- of mental health struggles that aren’t as supported as those with access to money are, of jobs that are unstable and only a few bad decisions away from being lost, of endless questions about the future- and indeed the past and what led you and your family to there, then perhaps the man in front of you, from only a few miles away had a completely different experience. It’s subtle yet profound for anyone with that lived experience and perhaps something to think about for those who do not. And Reid navigates that admirably. Where lesser actors would have adopted affected accents or way of talking to indicate less education, or a working class background, Reid instead leans into the depths of emotion that Ryan lacks the outlet for. That’s actually his greatest ‘tell’ of the background that Ryan comes from- the visible struggle with not only his emotions, but actually articulating the struggles, the mental health issues and everything he is going through. Reid gives weight to that struggle in his delivery of those moments that give us whole hosts of Ryan’s background without the need for artificial add ons. He is too, very funny in the role, giving light to the dark that does hang over Ryan, and so also giving added weight to the performance.
Similarly, Keith represents being Black and Queer without being defined by it. We get a subtle narrative of what that experience is in small-town Idaho. And Samuel D Hunter’s writing does well to avoid simply casting him as a Black Queer victim of small-town Idaho. Because while that can, and certainly sadly is often the case, actually Queer experiences are nuanced. In Keith’s case, they are offset by both his Blackness and middle class-ness. In being Black, he is experiencing the intersectionality of discrimination, and in being (very) middle class, he is experiencing the privilege and degree of protection that is afforded. None of this is hammered home by Hunter, however, it is there, subtly woven into the understanding of the character. His articulation of the character feels like a swan- all calmness and control, with all the work being done underneath, like Reid’s performance that breaks through with humour or flashes of darkness. Elsadig is a master at a subtle look, gesture or switch in tone that betrays what is really happening for his character. There’s a degree of masking, of control he gives to Keith, that when it breaks, in the third act, we see his character rip open with emotion, yes, but we also see the culmination of all the clues he as an actor gave us all along. It’s an added power to the most uncomfortably honest depiction of a meltdown on stage, hard to watch, but deeply honest with it.
There is much each of them does with their individual characters to be applauded. Still, the strength truly is in the chemistry between the actors and the way the performances complement each other, which pulls together the disparate threads of their individual stories and builds them into Hunter’s complex shared history they manage to create in the story of their friendship.
Another play would pit the differences of a white heterosexual working-class man against that of a Black middle-class Queer man. Instead, Hunter’s story allows the similarities if not quite shared experiences, then shared understanding to seep through in their friendship.
At the heart of the play is male friendship. Something that gets relatively little attention. The way the men navigate relates to each other, in a world that makes the way men do relate to each other difficult to navigate. In a particularly touching moment, Ryan tries to hug Keith, who rejects his touch. At first, there’s a moment of ‘Is it something beyond friendship’ for them? This would have destroyed the beauty of the story of friendship the show creates. But what follows that moment is two men very honestly talking about the absence of touch, of affection in each of their lives. While Keith turns it back on Ryan as the one who wanted that affection, it becomes apparent that they both need that. And perhaps specifically in need of male affection, touch and friendship. That they end the play, too, in a fierce embrace, is a wonderful bookmark to that.
That, too, is the power and another relatively rare narrative: the power of friendship above other relationships. Too often, we are given the narrative of romantic love or nothing. Neither of these men have that, and neither seek it either- that’s the real difference. Neither man spends the play yearning for love. Keith, when asked about romantic opportunities, dismisses it outright. Not the time in his life, but this is not the story of that. Plays, after all, are a snapshot of lives and having a snapshot focused on friendship, not romantic love, feels refreshing and important. Not every story needs to rely on romantic love, and it isn’t the most powerful of love for every situation. The play shows instead the power of platonic love between men and its importance.
The play's arc sits on the growth of that friendship while the world gives the two men something of a battering. Both experience loss, Keith’s more permanent than Ryan’s, in terms of their children. But the power remains in them finding a way through with each other, which feels like it is the heart of the play. For that reason, the ending doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the play. It’s sometimes telling when a change of theatrical approaches is needed at the end, and it feels like the final scene is from a slightly different play. This is mainly because the form shifts from the naturalistic two-hander to a more stylised approach.
The additional epilogue isn’t needed. The ending feels more powerful, with the two men facing the uncertain future alone. That feels like their epilogue, the coming back together after everything and realising their common ground and bond. It’s always a temptation for a playwright to wrap everything around us and give us the closure we crave. But sometimes, the unknown, unresolved, is more powerful. In this case, the answer to what happened to each of the children could be interpreted relative to each audience member’s feelings or perhaps relative cynicism. However, the emotional resolution between the two men is what matters at that moment, and that is delivered. Not in a neat bow, with everything being okay again, but instead in the messy complexities of life continuing to be messy while having someone at your side.
That it’s not a happy ending or at least a neat one, is also the point and a breath of fresh air. It’s, in fact, neither perhaps happy nor tragic. There is sadness in it, great sadness in Keith’s loss of his daughter. There is sadness in Ryan’s situation. But neither have reached the end of their roads. Taking out the epilogue telling us what happens next, we leave these men at a low point, but not their lowest. We leave them detached from what they love but with each other. We leave them with their worlds crumbling- or perhaps burned to the ground, which is more apt- but also, at a point, they might rebuild.
Regardless of a niggle with the choice of ending, the play is a powerful reflection on fatherhood, being an outsider and friendships. It offers much to reflect on across all the key themes. And in this production, director Dykstra sets those up to shine. Helped by the excellent cast of Elsadig and Reid, the story becomes emotionally engaging and thought-provoking, but it’s also worth adding and entertaining to watch. This is not a play that preaches, and the actors make it feel like you are part of the conversation between them in the room and at the same time, being engaged with and entertained by this reflection on life. Beautiful humour is found against the backdrop of their struggles, and each with dry with (Elsadig) and the ability to perfectly land a comedic line (Reid) make sure that the story is balanced, with as much humour as it has sensitivity.
The play’s title invokes ‘God’ but never mentions them. But this is perhaps the point; the case for the existence of God is in life, it seems, and in the stubborn continuation of life and hope against all things. Perhaps it is a case for the existence of humanity and love in all its forms. That seems quite God-like. And that’s what the play leaves us with- the continuing love of fathers for their daughters and the love of two friends for one another.
A Case fo the Existence of God runs at the Coalmine Theatre until 1st December 2024
A couple of personal notes from me…
It’s worth adding to the main review above, that the night I saw this play I said something along the lines of ‘this play reminded me of how I got started in theatre, of the work I loved to make.’ and that’s no small thing. Perhaps it’s because this British girl got her start in theatre in Canada, in black box spaces like the Coalmine, with audiences like I sat with that night, locals, here to support their local theatre, keep the art in the neighbourhood, all that good stuff. Perhaps too there is, despite theatre’s somewhat ineffable universality, something about the way Canada makes this sort of theatre that’s forever part of me. I kind of like that. But in the past four years of so I’ve really struggled with theatre. To watch it, to make it. Truth is I got my heart broken once too often by the world I loved and needed to step away. But seeing something that felt like it came from the sort of place I first learned to make theatre 20 years ago, shifted something. I’m not going to pretend it fixed everything, but in that evening, far more than just seeing the play itself, I was reminded of what it is to watch work, maybe even make work again that feels like my sort of theatre. So for that I’m grateful.
I mentioned too, this is a play about friendship. I don’t see that often enough. As a Queer person I’m told even all my stories must always be about love or lust. But friendship (between Queer folks, or not) is as important. And I valued a play so much that held that at its heart.