JUDGMENT DAY

                       by Marc Miller

Can you smell the theater in the air? Summer shows are happening here and there, fresh marquees are going up on Broadway, and the live streamed and taped shows that curbed our dramatic appetites during the pandemic are, let’s hope, receding, to be replaced by the real thing. But don’t turn off the computer just yet. While it’s around, you’ll want to catch Judgment Day.

It’s an encore performance of Barrington Stage Company’s online hit from last August, Rob Ulin’s very funny, irreverent-yet-reverent meditation on the afterlife, the nature of good and evil, and the motivations behind moral reform. If that sounds like a lot to digest in an 83-minute comedy, be assured, Judgment Day entertains throughout, zips by, and even leaves you a little to think about. Technically it’s a modest little thing, with no set to speak of, more-or-less-mufti costumes, and pencil-sketch drawings to establish locales. But it makes up for minimal production values with a powerhouse cast, one that savors Ulin’s zingy one-liners and knows how to deliver them.

The protagonist, one Sammy Campo, is a juicy role that fits Jason Alexander like the tailored three-piece suit this guy would undoubtedly wear. Sammy might be George Constanza on a higher professional plane: A successful attorney, he’s shallow, opportunistic, and morally bankrupt in ways even George would never think of. A merry reprobate who revels in fast money, easy sex, and humiliating his adversaries, he’s impossible to rattle—until a near-death experience. On the operating table, he momentarily enters (or does he?) the afterlife, where he’s greeted by Sister Margaret (Patti LuPone), his terrifying third grade Catholic school teacher. That’s right, Patti LuPone as an otherworldly nun. She hasn’t that much to do except shriek a maniacal laugh, but she does that magnificently.

Sammy, the sister assures him, is headed for hell, where “your naked body shall be covered in flaming worms,” and “you will float in an ocean of boiling diarrhea.” Human fate, she adds, is determined by human deeds, not impulses or intentions. So, when Sammy inexplicably recovers, he resolves to do better, to help humanity and redress those he’s wronged. It’s not redemption, exactly; it’s a calculated strategy to avoid those flaming worms. 

And plenty of people could use his help, whether that help is sincere or not. For a little play, Judgment Day has a big cast, mostly characters Sammy has sinned against. To begin with, there’s Tracy (Justina Machado), his estranged wife, a worn-out waitress he walked out on ten years ago. She didn’t bother to tell him they had a son (Julian Emile Lerner), a nine-year-old terror whose laziness, disrespect, and cynicism are the legacy of the dad he never knew. Sammy apologizes to Tracy, after a fashion: “I’ve realized I treated you wrong, and it’s bad to be wrong, and I want to make amends, and blah blah blah blah blah.”

There’s also Sammy’s put-upon secretary (Loretta Devine), who cleans up after his messes with a shrug and a muttered-under-her-breath insult. And, as Sammy seeks guidance in godliness, there’s the priest from the rundown local parish (Santino Fontana—I mean, Santino Fontana!), who’s undergoing some spiritual doubts of his own, unaided by the stern, rule-driven local monsignor (Michael McKean). The crisis of the moment in the father’s parish involves a sweet widow lady (Carol Mansell) about to lose her home after failing to make an insurance payment, sending Sammy, desperate to do a good deed, on the trail of an insurance agent as morally bereft as he is (Michael Mastro); he sets him up with a hooker (Elizabeth Stanley), with titillating results.

Sitcom situations, maybe, but Ulin has a lot on his mind. Is there an afterlife, or might it be the imagined musings of a soul at death’s door? Is virtue measured by what we do, or what we think? If good stems from evil or vice versa, who’s to blame/credit? Plus, there’s the rather touching throughline where Sammy, devious motivations or not, becomes a nurturing dad, and his kid becomes a better kid. The unforeseen love between father and son causes Alexander to get teary at one late moment, and so did I.

Fontana, in an unshowy role, lends some fire to this thoughtful, questioning cleric, agonizing over issues he thought his job description had resolved; McKean’s monsignor has fewer chances to make an impression, but he makes the most of what he’s got. Machado’s wary, unlucky Tracy is just right, and so is Mastro’s nightmare of a screw-everybody claims adjuster. But the real find is Lerner, an exuberant young man with timing, a versatile delivery, and genuine malice. He’s a great bad seed of a kid, and he reforms most convincingly.

There’s not much to the video presentation, but under Matthew Penn’s direction, the laughs are maximized, and you may end up feeling something, too. Split-second cross-platform moments—one character slapping another, the handing of a bouquet, Alexander and LuPone rolling around coitally on the floor (don’t ask)—are expertly timed and handled. Judgment Day is a winning hour and a half (stick around for the post-performance moments), and it’s hard to imagine a better online presentation of the material. But let’s hope that, post-pandemic, Barrington doesn’t forget this one; we want to see it on a stage.

Judgment Day

Regional play

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes
Available July 26-August 1 at https://www.stellartickets.com/o/barrington-stage/events/judgment-day