Ruben Carrazana in ‘This Beautiful City.’ (Sidney Hollingsworth/The Daily Campus)
This Beautiful City takes place in Colorado Springs, home to Ted Haggard’s former empire the New Life Church. The play follows the expansion of the evangelical movement in the area.
The New York theater company The Civilians, a troupe of theater artists who construct their work from interviews, wrote the play after spending 10 weeks in the city before and after the Haggard scandal broke.
The interviews in the show range in different social and religious views. The Civilians combined the interviews and music, written by Michael Friedman, to create the play.
Emails and online message boards were transformed into songs to give an engaging context to the Haggard scandal.
The play invites the audience to join in on the conversation on the way religion impacts individual identity as well as an entire city.
With a talented cast of 15 SMU students, many of them play several roles; yet, each one had a moment to shine.
Ruben Carrazana’s performance of a non-believer who grew up in Colorado Springs during the evangelical experience is paired with Tyler Crim, the associate pastor at New Life. This pairing, which are the first set of interviews in the play, provided a great balance of opposing views. Carrazana also played two other characters in the show.
Mary Brennan Reich’s musical performance of “End Times” was one of the best in the show vocally. Reich hit every high note with ease. Her character’s opening monologue also provided a lot of necessary backstory to the play.
Jared Wilson’s performance of a pastor who left Colorado Springs after coming out was touching and authentic.
Although all the actors shine through the entire show, the play itself is confusing at best. It is unclear to the average theater-goer whether This Beautiful City is a play, series of monologues or musical. While some may find this form of production endearing, others may be perplexed of its purpose.
The Beautiful City runs in Greer Garson Theater through Sept. 30.
