STAGE REVIEW : ‘Damien’ Too Good to Be Interesting

Father Damien, born Joseph de Veuster, devoted his life to caring for lepers. In 1873, he volunteered to go to Molokai Island, a barren strip of land where Hawaiian lepers were exiled, and stayed there until he himself caught the disease and eventually died of it.

In the eyes of some, that would qualify Damien for sainthood. In fact, Damien was declared “Venerable” by the Catholic Church in 1977, 88 years after his death.

But in the eyes of some of his contemporaries, he was an immoral man. He was accused of being coarse and of having a terrible temper. Some even said he slept with women.

Aldyth Morris’ one-man play, “Damien,” produced by Lamb’s Players Theatre and starring Lamb’s artistic director Robert Smyth, deals with those accusations in an attempt to show the man inside the cassock.

The show plays at the Lyceum Space through Sept. 30.

Despite Smyth’s vigorous attempts to show Damien as a man and not a plastic saint, Morris’ meandering script is so filled with awe that Damien seems untouchably holy, even after the accusations are raised.

The man knows no envy, no greed, no thirst for glory. His “faults,” such as they are, are that he is familiar, rather than distant, with his lepers; he doesn’t care if they are Catholic, and he loses his temper at the board of health when it withholds medicine, clothes and wood to build shelter for the sick.

The accusations of liaisons with women are rejected in the play, as, in fact, they were rejected by an independent investigation held shortly after Damien’s death.

Such “faults” of anger and universal love only enhance his aura of virtue. Besides, the central fact no one can cavil at is that the man gave up his life to care for the afflicted. It’s hard to quarrel about the martyrdom of that.

Smyth radiates a passionate heart as Damien. The direction by David McFadzean is sensitive.

But ultimately, the play chokes on its own unadulterated goodness.

If only the play had included other not-so-saintly characters who could affect and be affected by Damien. After all, one of the most fascinating things about the man--besides his goodness--was the way he made others uncomfortable.

One would love to get inside the minds of his critics--those purportedly “good” people who criticized him from a comfortable distance: the members of the board of health, the ministers who stayed in their fine houses, his church superiors who tried to instill more obedience in him.

Did his accusers attack him because he made them feel guilty for not doing more? How did the priests who heard his agonized confessions feel? Is it possible there was something alienating about his personality, or even his methods? Did he work better with the sick than the well?

These questions are not answered in this play.

Still, while not a mesmerizing work of art, it does tell a story that is more relevant than ever in the era of AIDS.

Like the lepers of the 19th Century, AIDS patients of the 20th Century are often feared, shunned and isolated because they have a transmittable, fatal disease for which there is not yet a cure. Some suffer from lack of treatment and some suffer from lack of human contact, kindness or love.

This comparison was clearly part of the Lamb’s Players’ message. The company has designated Tuesday’s performance as a benefit for the AIDS Chaplaincy Program and Hope Ministries of San Diego, two local organizations working directly with AIDS patients and their family and friends.

One imagines that this will be just the kind of benefit Damien would have liked.

“DAMIEN”

By Aldyth Morris. Director is David McFadzean. Set and lighting by David Thayer. Stage manager is Lizbeth Persons. Starring Robert Smyth. At 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, through Sept. 30. Tickets are $15-17. At the Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza. (619) 474-3385.