Review: "A Case for the Existence of God" – Playwright and Rogue Machine Excel

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Samuel D. Hunter's hugely compassionate play is a Rogue Machine winner

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Ryan, a blue-collar factory worker who has hit a rough patch, turns to Keith, a mortgage broker to help secure the funds to buy a 12-acre parcel of land on which he (Ryan) hopes to build a home to raise his toddler daughter. The broker, a single father himself, is sympathetic, and willing to do what he can to help despite the steep odds his client will face. Keith knows this client from a different time in both of their lives, and probably has greater incentive not to help. But in the ensuing 95 minutes of his A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, playwright Samuel D. Hunter returns us not only to his home territory in Idaho, but into the depths of basic elements of human understanding, need and compassion.

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Directed by John Perrin Flynn and staged in the upstairs Henry Murray Stage at the Matrix Theatre, EXISTENCE OF GOD continues a long fruitful relationship between Hunter and Rogue Machine Theatre. This delicate and insightful two-hander presents both the playwright and the company at their most skilled. Hunter is a playwright with keen nuance into human behavior; Ryan and Keith are ordinary people who could be our neighbors, and Carlo Mancasola and Nicholas Anthony Reid play the stuffing out of them.

Spanning several months in the present, the bulk of the action takes place in Keith’s office at Twin Falls Heritage Mortgage Brokers. The space is tidy, and largely unadorned, offering up a couple of baby photos on a bulletin board. Keith may wear a coat and tie, but there’s nothing slick or big time about this man. Even if he’s setting up loans worth hundreds of thousands, in Twin Falls you’re probably not that important. All of which suits Ryan just fine, since he has little education, works in a yogurt factory and – while by no means stupid – doesn’t really get the finer points of the deal Keith is trying to put together. Keith employs words (financial industry jargon and others) that Ryan doesn’t know, but will try to learn. immediately after learning the word “harrowing,” Ryan tries it out, and the circumstance he applies it to – which ties to the history of the land he’s trying to buy – is spot-on.

A bond develops here that transcends the broker-client relationship. The two men first became acquainted at the daycare attended by their toddler-aged daughters, Krista and Willa. Ryan is going through a divorce, and he needs a better living situation if he’s going to get any custody of his kid. Keith is trying to adopt his daughter – who lives with him – via the foster-to-adopt route. Which means that every call from Willa’s social worker throws Keith into a panic. Revelations come to light as Ryan and Keith tunnel more deeply into each other’s circumstances. Keith is Black, gay, well-educated and financially secure. Ryan lives paycheck to paycheck in a crappy apartment. Come to learn they knew each other in high school…or rather Keith knew the more popular Ryan. As easy as it would have been to have had Ryan bully Keth when they were teens, Hunter is shrewder than that. This relationship may be born out of a transactional need, but Ryan also happens to be just the kind of decent, sensitive individual that Keith needs.

Not that there isn’t conflict brewing. The playwright leads us to the realization that the variables of parenting – hell, of adult life! – are extremely fricking hard when you’re an outsider or when you’re poor. As Ryan and Keith draw closer and fracture, we see them both at close to their best and at their not-so-great.

The two performers do excellent work. Reid deftly balances Keith’s kindness with his fragility. In his performance, we’re watching a man who is opening himself up for the first time probably in years. When he calls out Ryan’s ignorant or misguided attempts at being helpful, we also get some genuine laughs.

Partnering him is Mancasola who creates – in Ryan – a man to whom gentleness and compassion seem to come naturally. Mascasola’s Ryan can be sweetly a bit dim, but this is someone you want in your corner. This is by no means a play in which we are encouraged to take sides, and Rogue Machine’s audience should be squarely in the corners of both men.

In the very cozy Murray stage, the audience is almost as much in Keith and Ryan’s laps as they are in each other’s. Scenic Designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz has used the space to accommodate the cubicle at Keith’s office as well as Keith’s house, the land Ryan is coveting and a playground. The lighting (by Ric Zimmerman), sound ( Christopher Moscatiello ) and costume design (Christine Cover Ferro) are similarly first-rate and up to Rogue Machine’s usual standards.

A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD concludes with an epilog of sorts that, while perhaps a bit forced, feels designed to get us thinking about the play’s title. Hunter has not written a play that is in any way theological or religious. Nobody finds God. Characters find humanity, and they find other human beings which in Twin Falls, Los Angeles or anywhere else, is a pretty remarkable thing.

A CASE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD continues through November 1 at 7657 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Photo of Carlo Mancasola and Nicholas Anthony Reid by Jeff Lorch .

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles/article/Review-A-CASE-FOR-THE-EXISTENCE-OF-GOD-at-Rogue-Machine-At-The-Matrix-Theatre-20260918)._