On Thursdays, the Hayworth Theatre has been the home of a controversial and timely staged reading of Michael Murphy’s 2005 Obie-nominated Sin, A Cardinal Deposed. The play is based on the actual transcripts of the 2002 prosecution of a Boston Archdiocese priest in the wake of accusations regarding sexual impropriety.
The trial takes place in the Suffolk County Court with lawyer Orson Krieger trying to get answers from the ever-evasive Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, as to why he took no steps to protect the victims while shuffling the offensive priests around to various parishes. All the dialogue comes from the two hearings of Cardinal Law and the trial. This has particular resonance in Los Angeles currently as the culpability of Archbishop Mahoney and his actions are still an open question. The most effective scene in the play is the confession by one of the victims as he relates what happened and how it destroyed his life.
It is also interesting to note that the piece has raised some sympathy for Bernard Law on one side and total disgust on the other. After all, the priests were his friends and he felt his job was to minister to them. Tragically, he didn't see fit to shepherd the victims as well. By placing the victim's testimony after Archbishop Law's deposition, Murphy leaves no doubt where his sympathies lie. No matter how reasonable or understandable the Cardinal's actions were, the horror suffered by the victim outweighs it all.
The cast changes nightly but they are all well-known actors from the stage and television. On the night I saw this the actors were Joe Spano as the Cardinal's attorney, James Handy as the Cardinal, Charles Shaughnessy as Orson Krieger, Wendie Malick and Dan Lauria as various witnesses, Jack Maxwell as a victim, and Carlie Nettles as a young witness. They were all very effective in their assigned roles. Alternates include Bruce Davison, Gary Cole, Hamish Linkletter, Richard Kind, Frances Fisher, Tom O’Keefe, Christian Campbell, Nicholas Brendon, Paul Ben-Victor, and John Ciccolini.
The director for this event is the Academy Award-nominated and sometime actor Paul Mazursky. Gary Blumsack is the theater's artistic director, and Danna Hyams serves as the producing director. The staging is simple but effective, making all the necessary salient points. These three and the other celebrities are to be thanked for giving their time to this project. The concert reading concludes at the Hayworth Theatre April 1, 2009.
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Article comments
1 - Jack Fritscher
I was a schoolmate of Bernard Cardinal Law for six years at the Pontifical College Josephinum which was directly subject to the Vatican. There was very little hanky-panky at the Josephinum, but when there was, it was immediately covered up: the seminiarians involved were shipped home in the middle of the night, and in at least one instance a young priest was whisked off to, I believe, a mental institution. My point is that Bernard Cardinal Law and I were educated in a system of sexual cover ups. I, however, after my eleven years at the Josephinum realized that homosexuals existed and I was one---even though I had not known that at the PCJ. I wrote a book about this turbulent 1953-1965 period in American Catholic seminaries titled "What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy" which is not at all seedy, and is rather like Joseph Musil's "Young Torless" meets James Joyce's "Portrait of a Young Man." In addition, I cover Cardinal Law with some observations in the book "Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer." In the only defense I can think of for Bernie Law, I can say he acted exactly like any corporate head faced with a shortage of workers whom he had to rescue and maintain to service his ecclesiastical corporation, the Archdiocese of Boston. May I suggest that the actor portraying Bernie Law in "A Cardinal Deposed" play the part as a great and grand Queen---because that is how my schoolmate Bernie behaved at the Josephinum. He is a scandalous public figure; so I can note that he arched his head back like a nasal-drip Queen. With no Lewinsky stains on my cassock, I'm not saying Bernie is gay. He may not be a gay Queen, but, like Kelsey Grammer's "Frazier," he was certainly a straight Queen. Funny how he was rewarded for his Boston shenanigans with a princely position in Rome itself. At the Pontifical College Josephinum, we all were taught the ancient Roman maxim: "Promaveatur ut amoveatur" which translates to the Vatican policy "Let him be promoted so he might be removed."