By Elise C. Barnett-Curran
Jared Greathouse, playwright of Waiting for the World to End, has returned to the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival under the umbrella of Decaf Acting Co, this time with a man on a mission in A Call to Serve: Confessions of a Mormon Hitman. The man is Zachariah Beesley, and he is recently deceased. His years in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has taken a more interesting turn than most: he is a killer. A former marine and elder in the field of LDS missionaries, Zachariah, played by Dallon Thorup, spins a sorrowful and violent tale as he sits before the bench of retribution and a callous yet casual judge of the highest court played by Ian Buckley.
This particular production is presented as a reading, with stage manager Bridgette Lehman intoning stage directions. The script is perfectly suited to this digital theater format; the plot is plain and the story simple. I’d like to have seen a certain prop at the end (no spoilers) could have been utilized to simplistic effect. Nevertheless, A Call to Serve: Confessions of a Mormon Hitman is not lost for this. Thorup brings an interesting tenderness to the role, where one might expect hardened nonchalance. His moments of deep feeling were fascinating, and I felt as the judge might have, watching with detached bewilderment as someone described a life completely disparate from what one might expect of a Latter-Day family man.
Winding, languorous soliloquy makes up a good portion of the play, but it is decidedly lovely. Thorup reads his lines well, despite a lack of memorization, but I do not begrudge him on this point, given the slapdash method in which many people brought their productions to Fringe this year. The ability to remain compelling while looking down at a script on a Zoom call is not an easy thing, and Thorup pulls it off, darn it. Much of director Sterling Shane Allen’s work in this production seems to have been in drawing out emotionality, and he certainly succeeded.
The ending was my favorite bit, though I shan’t ruin it for you. Suffice to say, I was cackling with a bit of wicked, irreverent glee.
One more production—Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 8:30 PM MST
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