Review - AN ALMOST HOLY PICTURE - iTheatre Collaborative

Christopher Haines
photo: iTheatre Collaborative

highlights from Herb Paine's review - (click link at bottom to read complete review)

"Two existential questions are at the heart of every person's search for meaning: Why do bad things happen to good people? How can a God allow bad things to befall good people? Try as some philosophers have, the answers are elusive and, if at all answerable, unsatisfyingly so. So they remain in Heather McDonald's An Almost Holy Picture...iTheatre Collaborative, which prides itself on electrifying audiences with distinctive and divergent works, has selected Ms. McDonald's play to close its 12th Season ~ and, it's a good thing. A very good thing! Directed by Rosemary Close, and featuring Christopher Haines, the production offers one of those special and all-too-rare moments for critical reflection on matters of importance....At play's end, you may leave with a sense of unease that something in the story has been left unresolved; that, once again, these questions remain unresolved; that you are on the hook of a dangling proposition ~ but not because you haven't been invited to partake in a poignant and reflective conversation and definitely not because you haven't been treated to a rich performance by a master actor...Christopher Haines portrays Samuel Gentle, the soulful protagonist and chronicler of his life's quest to comprehend the fickle fingers of fate...With the cadence of a man on the edge, he recounts the times that he has heard the call to follow God ~ the first with his father on a walk by a cranberry bog; the second, after a tragic bus accident; and the third, the birth of his daughter Ariel...It is Samuel's struggle to discover what is truly holy. As his bishop has counseled him, grace can enter one's life through a wound....a performance that will resonate with the soul within you...." -Herbert Paine, Broadway World (click here to read the complete review)