Nicaea

What I liked

The pretty girl and the cute boy were off-beat in their attractiveness, and they tried to make sense of their part of cheese-y Debra-Paget/Jeff-Chandler subplot. She had a silent film-actress look, China-white skin and a soft-and-willowy frame, a far cry from the modern boy-women looks of our modern celeb/actresses. And the boy managed, through sheer earnestness, to make some sense of a totally wacky throughline which was provided no psychological integrity by the playwright.

What I didn't like

Shaw created theses that were not easily explained away; here the playwright failed to engage characters’ or audience’s passions about its metaphysical contemplations. Elaine Pagel’s Award-winning book, “The Gnostic Gospels” demonstrates how thrilling this material COULD HAVE BEEN. Not so here.

My overall impression

The author has the desire to make canonical history come to life, but the debates are trumped up, there’s an unearned rape subplot, and the central issue (was Christ begotten or made, ergo, was he eternal or did he come into existence after the Father) is not made compelling enough. (I saw a preview; there may have been period costumes but at my performance theactors wore generic black modern outfits.). Some of the actors were slow and inaudible.