STAGE REVIEW : ‘Heathen Valley’s’ True Tale of Aspiring Angels

Three things to pray for: “A school that teaches, a hospital that heals and a church that doesn’t presume.”

Romulus Linney’s “Heathen Valley,” in its West Coast premiere at the Grove Theatre, concerns a Bishop who brought his flock back to God and decided that that wasn’t enough--he would make angels of them.

Result: disaster. For the people in the valley. Not for the Bishop. He had moved on by then.

Linney based this 1987 play--and an earlier novel--on a true story from his native South Carolina. He doesn’t tell the story cynically. There’s sympathy for the Bishop (Dennis Robertson), who believes himself to be a man of conscience operating for the good of those entrusted to his care.

He also sees himself as existing on a higher plane than they do. They are supporting players in his spiritual drama and they must look the part, even dress the part. “God” loves uniformity.

Do all leaders end up confusing themselves with God? We’re much more drawn to the Bishop’s second-in-command, played by Ron Kuhlman. A layman and a sinner, he is well aware that human nature is twisty (starting with himself), and he’s not too sure about the taller tales in the Bible (starting with the virgin birth).

Typically, he does the real work of bringing “the heathens” in the valley back to the light, largely by applying horse sense to their problems. But he’s as lost as they are when the Bishop turns his back on the mission. Linney wishes that we could get along without the symbolic magic of religion, but suggests that we can’t. All the more reason to use that magic wisely.

“Heathen Valley” is a platform piece, almost an oratorio. Philip Killian’s staging is firmly shaped and earnestly spoken. Life in the mountains, whether one serves the Lord or the devil, is seen as a serious business.

Due regard is paid to the fact that these are people who speak a kind of poetry. Each face instantly creates a rural archetype, yet nobody falls into rural cliche. It is sound, honest acting, on a tidy wood-planked set by Thomas Buderwitz.

The production is also a bit bland. The voices tend to stay on the same elegiac note, with the diction not as sharp as it could be. Scene transitions are smoothly blended, rather than being crisply observed. A contour map of the performance wouldn’t suggest hills and valleys but a contiguous plain.

Too, we’d like more of a sense of the individual face behind the archetype. David Officer as the young man who tells the story is much less sure about who he’s playing than he was in “South Central Rain,” and as a result comes off as a voice rather than a character.

We instantly see that Kuhlman’s lay deacon will keep his pain to himself, while Dennis Robertson’s bishop will enjoy sharing the fineness of his conscience with the world--but where do we go from there? The only unexpected piece of behavior in the play is Kuhlman’s sudden demonstration, at a dance, that he’s the liveliest step-dancer in the room. We need more such surprises.

No complaints about Marte Boyle Slout’s midwife, Thor Edgell’s mountain man or Christina Carlisi’s fierce wife, except that we know everything we’re going to know about them right away. “Heathen Valley” is intelligent, substantial theater, but the mystery of human personality--the reason we can’t be programmed into angelhood--isn’t felt.

Plays Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7:30. (Sept. 10 performance at 3 p.m.) Closes Sept. 16. Tickets $10-$20. 12852 Main Street, Garden Grove. (714) 636-7213.