Entertainment

Excessive ‘Passion’

It seems unfair to criticize a theatrical work for being too ambitious, but “Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play” fairly begs for it. This triptych of one-acts is stuffed with so many ideas and themes that it falls apart under its own weight.

It’s also 3½ hours long. At least they’re giving away wine and bread — actually, bagels or muffins — at intermission.

Ruhl, a MacArthur “Genius” winner and a Tony nominee this season for “In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play,” has been working on this drama for more than half a decade. Previously seen in Washington, DC, Chicago and New Haven, the Epic Theatre Ensemble opened it last night in — aptly enough — a former Sunday school.

For her modern-day variation of the oft-performed religious work, Ruhl’s triptych depicts three different attempts at staging it: in 16th-century England, 1934 Germany and, finally, in South Dakota, during and just after the Vietnam War.

In each segment, we watch as a band of amateur players rehearses their version under the watchful eye of a harried director (all played by Keith Reddin) amid a swirl of emotional, romantic and political entanglements.

In the Elizabethan segment, the young woman playing the Virgin Mary develops a crush on the hunky actor playing Jesus (“I didn’t ask to play his mother,” she whines). Meanwhile, the company is pressured by the monarchy’s clampdown on religious dramas.

The second act, not surprisingly, deals with anti-Semitism, as well as the homosexual attraction that develops between two of the male players. And the third, which begins in 1969, concerns a soldier back from Vietnam, suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Along the way, we’re treated to periodic parades of giant fish and cameo appearances by Queen Elizabeth, Adolf Hitler and Ronald Reagan (all entertainingly played by T. Ryder Smith).

While Ruhl has many important things on her mind, she fails to provide enough depth or coherence to the proceedings to justify their punishing running time. Equal-

ly unsuccessful is the blending of portentous elements — the German segment ends with the loud rumble of train tracks — with puerile humor (a terrified “angel” being hoisted skyward by a rickety pulley).

Mark Wing-Davey’s directed a remarkably well-organized production, and the ensemble performs it ably. But for all the passion evident in this clearly thoughtful effort, Ruhl has bitten off more than she or the audience can comfortably chew.