Love the Sinner

Synopsis

An international group of church leaders converge in an African hotel to contend the need for Christian doctrine to change with the times. People here want God. Here where we live there is still pestilence and plagues, evil emperors, corruption - demons for some. When we look to the bible we do not see ‘stories’ like you. We see truth. Fierce theological debate demonstrates that what’s current thinking on one continent is abhorrent to another. In a neighbouring room, a brief sexual encounter between Joseph, a local porter, and Michael, a British conference volunteer, leads to a direct and potent challenge both to Michael, as he returns to England to grapple with ethics of his own, and to the liberal claims and professed compassion of the affluent West and its church. He’s a man. First and foremost. Who needs help. Drew Pautz’s tense and provocative new play considers what we may be willing to sacrifice, personally and in the public sphere, for what we believe to be right.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 12 May 2010

Canadian playwright Drew Pautz created ripples at the Soho Theatre with his first play, Someone Else’s Shoes. He now makes waves with his second at the National, a cunningly written clash of religious cultures across continents; and the story of a modern marriage.

Love the Sinner starts in the middle of a religious conference in Africa. The delegates have come to an impasse while discussing homosexual bishops and same-sex blessings. Should they move with the times or worry about re-painting the house of Christianity too often, and too easily?

The African/European stand-off is resolved, with a twist, in the second scene hotel room encounter between Jonathan Cullen’s volunteer white layman at the conference and Fiston Barek’s black hotel porter, a member of the Holy Mountain of Fire mission to the world.

Cullen’s sexually conflicted Michael has “eyed” Barek’s Joseph – in a roomful of clergymen, and one woman, closing their eyes for secr...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Richard - 3 June 2010:

Tedious, vapid, pointless. The RNT Cottesloe seems to be the one major venue in London these days where you are guaranteed rubbish; sometimes patronising, often turgid, frequently a puerile stab at a worthy issue. SINNER ticks all the boxes and eclipses even PAINS OF YOUTH as the grimmest and most infuriating night out you can find for twenty quid. Who gives these plays the go-ahead? Wonderful to have paid a return visit to RUINED at the Almeida this afternoon: the best new writing on stage in the Capital; SINNER, in contrast, must be the worst. It's hateful....

Read more and add your own review