Set in The Bronx in 2009, “Storefront Church” includes balloon payments, influence peddling and the real estate crisis. But don’t go to John Patrick Shanley’s new play expecting ripped-from-the-headlines realism. This is more of a melancholy fable, or maybe a twisted fairy tale.
The final installment of a trilogy (including 2004’s Tony-winning “Doubt” and 2006’s “Defiance”), “Storefront Church” continues Shanley’s investigation of politics, religion and human imperfections.
As so often happens in real life, the plot is set in motion by a mix of self-interest and good intentions.
A Bronx borough president named Donaldo Calderon (Giancarlo Esposito, most recently of “Breaking Bad”) decides to pull some strings on behalf of a longtime family friend in financial trouble.
That friend, Jessie Cortez (Tonya Pinkins), took on a second mortgage to help the Rev. Chester Kimmich (Ron Cephas Jones) set up a church in her building’s basement. But he’s had a crisis of faith and hasn’t been preaching. No services means no collections. Now Jessie is behind on her payments, and the bank is coming after her.
Against his better judgment, Calderon gets involved. He swiftly becomes embroiled in tit-for-tat deals.
The premise has the makings of a hard-edged takedown of predatory lending or city politics, but Shanley isn’t interested in being Michael Moore. He’d rather be Hans Christian Andersen.
Jessie’s loan officer (the extraordinary Zach Grenier, the crafty family lawyer on “The Good Wife”) is a lost man. Underneath his palsied face is a troubled prince.
Rev. Kimmich, a refugee from Hurricane Katrina, is like a king in exile. And under his slick business suit, the bank’s CEO (Jordan Lage) is the greedy ogre — he even eats his son’s gingerbread house.
As for Jessie’s husband, Ethan (Bob Dishy), he’s the generous fool, always ready with a quip.
Despite these larger-than-life characters, the actors never overreach. Takeshi Kata’s economical set alternately suggests anonymous Bronx offices and the title’s church — nothing more than a basic pulpit and some folding chairs. And Shanley, who also directed, sets a relaxed pace. Too relaxed, maybe: Though it’s only 90 minutes, “Storefront Church” sometimes lacks momentum.
Still, it’s nice to see a show that makes room for a couple of wordless, reflective scenes set to Antony’s sorrowful “Another World” and Nick Cave’s lovely “Into My Arms,” which begins, “I don’t believe in an interventionist God/But I know, darling, that you do.”
Like the rest of the play, those moments are a little clunky, a little obvious, but also earnest and generous. And that alone is praise-worthy.