Fewer repetitive arguments about evolution and religion between Heidi Schreck and Justin Kruger — as a high school biology teacher and her pupil — would make a world of difference in Catherine Trieschmann’s play “How the World Began.” (Carol Rosegg)
Imagine a cross between “Inherit the Wind” and David Mamet’s charged student-versus-teacher drama “Oleanna,” and you have some idea of “How the World Began.”
Catherine Trieschmann’s new piece, presented by the Women’s Project, revolves around a high school biology teacher whose offhand remark about the nonscientific theories of life being “all that other gobbledygook” deeply offends one of her religious students. But neither ideology nor pathology is explored to interesting effect, and the play seems to end where it begins.
For one thing, the decks are stacked. The teacher, Susan (played by the increasingly impressive Heidi Schreck), is a single, five-months-pregnant New Yorker who doesn’t bother to hide her atheism.
Desperate for a job, she moves to a rural Kansas town that’s just been devastated by a tornado, only to be assaulted by the stench of manure and the deafening sounds of chain saws invading her makeshift trailer classroom. The student, Micah (Justin Kruger), a recently orphaned 16-year-old, is so clearly deeply troubled that his religious convictions mainly seem a symptom of emotional disturbance.
Add to that a third character, Micah’s self- appointed guardian, Gene (Adam LeFevre), a wily figure whose efforts to mollify the situation are accompanied by deceptively folksy friendliness and a lemon meringue pie.
The 90-minute play essentially consists of variations of the same scene. Susan’s initially calm discussions with Micah and Gene become more emotionally charged. Things come to a flaming head when a masked scarecrow is burned on her front lawn.
Despite the actors’ best efforts — Schreck invests the teacher with an intriguing, smug neuroticism, Kruger is scarily intense as the student, and LeFevre is subtly hilarious as the would-be mediator — the proceedings eventually take on the repetitive, insular air of a presidential debate.