Ambitious play asks audience to grapple with divisive topic

“Keely and Du,” Jane Martin’s 1993 drama about personal choice and religious fervor, tells a relentlessly argumentative story. The two sides are represented by Keely, a working-class woman who gets pregnant after her former husband rapes her, and Du, a nurse whose biblical beliefs cause her to behave unlawfully.

The play, which was performed Thursday by the Meetinghouse Theatre Lab in Winter Harbor, pits the two sides against each other and, in doing so, exposes their weaknesses and, inevitably, their similarities. The playwright resists taking sides on the issue, which is among the most divisive in this country. But in creating characters who are symbolic mouthpieces, she also never puts a truly human face to the predicaments of the plot.

This is never more apparent than in the character of Walter, a religious zealot who masterminds the central action of kidnapping Keely the day of her abortion and chaining her to a bed to prevent termination of the pregnancy. Scott Sortman plays the role with monotonous frankness, underscoring how Walter sucks the life out of Keely even as he means to save her.

In her program notes, first-time director Cynthia Thayer says “Keely and Du” is “about love and the need to be loved by others.” In the end, however, Keely is all anger and Du, a conspirator in the kidnapping, claims to obey the Lord.

Love does not win out, not even in Martin’s preachy final scene. Lisa Reilich, as Keely, and Bonnie Myers, as Du, are not without their sympathetic moments. Their emotional investments clearly drive this production. But their roles are so narrowly drawn by the playwright that it’s impossible to relate with much sympathy to either one. The play’s most powerful scene comes toward the end when Steve Gormley makes a tension-filled cameo appearance as the offending ex-husband.

Martin intended the play to run as an uninterrupted, 95-minute one act. Last night’s performance slipped past the two-hour mark because of unwieldy scene changes. In this way, “Keely and Du” proved an ambitious choice for the fledgling troupe.

Yet the presentation may achieve an important goal in the community. As Thayer cogently points out, the story raises questions of good and evil in the context of a free society. While few people may actually walk away with a new stance on abortion, it’s courageous of this company to lay out the ideas and ask its patrons to grapple with them in such an intimate, chamber-theater setting. The Meetinghouse Lab is on to something here: Often through its artists, this country has been charged to confront surprisingly fragile definitions of democracy. In this play, the questions of personal freedom, righteous missions, legality, class and atonement ring like a big cracked bell – loud, daunting, heavy and patriotic.

The Meetinghouse Theatre Lab will present “Keely and Du” 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, June 19, at Hammond Hall in Winter Harbor. For tickets, call 963-2569.