A Familiar Parable

In the year of our Lord 1985, or thereabouts, American culture discovered that men of the cloth made for heaven-sent comic fodder. After all, who needed Gary Hart or Dan Quayle when you had Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell and, more recently, Jesse Jackson? Our spiritual leaders’ foibles and the Vegas-style excesses of modern televangelism have supplied satirists with enough material for a year’s worth of Sunday sermons or a dozen “Saturday Night Live” skits.

Now, slightly behind the curve, comes “God’s Man in Texas,” local playwright David Rambo’s earnest, good-humored if not exactly soul-baring account of a generational power struggle at a Houston mega-church.

Structured around a couple of simple plot lines and filled with gentle gibes at George Bush (pere and fils), broccoli and other not-unexpected targets, “God’s Man in Texas” offers a mildly diverting take on high-tech proselytizing and the conflicts inherent in father-son (and surrogate father-son) relationships.

Sturdily crafted by the playwright and directed in unfussy fashion by Geffen artistic director Randall Arney, Rambo’s piece is more a serviceable vehicle for familiar ideas about spirituality and its discontents than a bully pulpit for new, provocative ones. The play opened Wednesday at the Geffen Playhouse.

Newfangled ideas have been in short supply for some time at Rock Baptist Church, the sprawling house of worship-recreation center-retail emporium over which Dr. Philip Gottschall (George Coe) presides like an Old Testament Jehovah in pinstripes. Crusty and cantankerously devout, the octogenarian preacher is so utterly old school that it’s something of a wonder that his church ever made it into the 20th century.

Yet Rock Baptist, with its 30,000 parishioners, two swimming pools, bowling leagues, singles nights and television show, is the very model of the contemporary corporate-style American church.

Gottschall, its paternalistic CEO, has tended this flock for decades, and while his board members want to put him out to pasture, this proud man isn’t going anywhere as long his heart keeps ticking and his TV ratings stay high.

His initially unwitting rival appears in the mild-mannered form of Dr. Jeremiah “Jerry” Mears (Francis Guinan), a San Antonio minister whose salesman-preacher father vanished in mysterious circumstances and whose humdrum exterior cloaks a passionate, eloquent spirit. “You look bigger on TV. Do you use a lower-than-average pulpit?” drawls Hugo Taney (Ian Barford), the church’s laid-back factotum, when Mears arrives at Rock Baptist for a stint of guest-preaching. In short order, Mears finds himself the preferred candidate of the pastor search committee, which puts him at odds with the resentful, increasingly imperious Gottschall.

The escalating tension between the two men drives most of the play’s action., and sets up its philosophical debate about how to build a more intimate connection with the Man Upstairs. Arney’s direction registers these subtle transformations well.

But they might emerge more pointedly if the contest were evenly matched between the main characters and the two actors. Without overplaying Mears’ naive lapses and flashes of ego and ambition, Guinan communicates the sincerity and plain-vanilla charm of this middle-aged preacher answering a higher call. A member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf company, Guinan combines boyish alacrity and self-effacing integrity to pull off a difficult role.

The same can’t quite be said of Coe, whose staccato barks and lordly glares win laughs but ultimately undercut an already unsympathetically written character. His venerable age (81) notwithstanding, Gottschall seems too stuffy and insulated for a wily Texas good ol’ boy managing a multimillion-dollar religious theme park. Aspects of his role that might humanize him, such as his telephonic exchanges with his overbearing wife, are too broadly drawn. Both as penned and as played, he could use a splash of barbecue sauce on his tie. Or something.

Instead, much of the play’s colloquial color derives from the jocular Hugo, a sleepy-eyed, blunt-spoken veteran of every Rock Baptist recovery group who wouldn’t mind sinning occasionally for old time’s sake. Barford, another Steppenwolf mainstay, has the quality of a man rode hard and put away wet one too many times, and his amiable presence is a major plus for the show, despite an unpersuasive subplot involving yet another estranged father-son pairing.

“God’s Man in Texas” is a modest, inoffensive parable that spends a few too many verses pounding home well-known themes.

Sure, modern religion’s noisy commercialism is a lively subject, not to mention a tragedy. But as God says to Job in the good book, sort of, been there, heard that one before.

*

“God’s Man in Texas,” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays.-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends March 17. $30-$46. (310) 208-5454. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Dr. Jeremiah “Jerry” Mears...

...Francis Guinan

Hugo Taney...Ian Barford

Dr. Philip Gottschall...George Coe

Written by David Rambo. Directed by Randall Arney. Set by Loy Arcenas. Lighting by Daniel Ionazzi. Costumes by Christina Haatainen Jones. Sound by Richard Woodbury. Stage manager Alice Elliot Smith.