By Jason and Alisha Hagey
At the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, PYGmalion’s performance of The Big Quiet examines companionship, faith, and the silent conflict between institutional allegiance and individual identity. The play, set in a small San Diego apartment, centers on two young women who battle the tension between duty and desire and the thin line separating conviction from self-deception. The Big Quiet is a slow-burning emotional reckoning for two sister missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Morag Shepherd (Playwright) does not sanitize the tangled paradoxes of faith, doubt, and the brittle structure of belief. If anything, she leans into them. Her characters are flawed, and their discussions are archetypal dichotomies that pose challenging questions without easy answers. The Big Quiet is the exploration of life’s subtle tragedies and absurdities. Shepherd’s narrative pushes the audience to reflect on their journeys of faith and their expectations (realistic and otherwise) of others.
Under keen direction, The Big Quiet finds its power in what is said and the charged openings in the middle that speak louder than confessions. Tamara Howell (Director) gives the play’s action a Chekhovian feel where there is a delicate balance between humor and sorrow and, perhaps most importantly, where characters dream of change but remain tethered to inertia – a space between hope and resignation.
At first, Juls Marino (Sister Garcia) monopolizes the stage. They radiate a remarkable, almost untouchable magnetism. Opposite them, Lily Hilden (Sister Roberts) is a woman whose rigid devotion to the rules isn’t faith so much as desperation. As a counterbalance to Marino, Hilden begins to conquer the stage as they clutch, white-knuckled, the need for structure in a world beyond their control. They are yin and yang – just as you believe one will dominate the other, the tables turn, and the balance between them keeps the play from teetering.
Providing us with our setting, Allen Smith (Set Design) manifests a simple, small, quintessentially Californian apartment, ready-made for a pair of missionaries. The best part of his design is the water damage in the wall. That flourish makes his set feel lived in and all too real. Being inspired, Madison Howell Wilkins (Costume Design) provides our actors with every patently drab outfit; it is as if she pilfered the suitcases of two sad, sad, real-life sister missionaries.
By the end of The Big Quiet, there is no grand climax, no villain to defeat, but time moving forward indifferent to human desires. Heartbreak is inevitable. Happiness is always just out of reach. There is the aching realization that time often passes unnoticed. People talk about things far more than actually doing them. Life happens, and we keep living. On the surface, The Big Quiet is about two sister missionaries in a San Diego apartment. On a deeper level, The Big Quiet is about the quiet beauty of ordinary people longing for something more.
Run time: 75 minutes no intermission.
Mature audiences only (18+). Infants not permitted. All patrons require a ticket regardless of age.
PYGmalion Theatre Company presents The Big Quiet, written by Morag Shepherd
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Blackbox Theatre, 138 Broadway, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
February 21-March 8, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025 4:00PM
Sunday, February 23, 2025 2:00PM
Thursday, February 27, 2025 7:30PM
Friday, February 28, 2025 7:30PM
Saturday, March 1, 2025 4:00PM
Sunday, March 2, 2025 2:00PM
Thursday, March 6, 2025 7:30PM
Friday, March 7, 2025 7:30PM
Saturday, March 8, 2025 4:00PM
Tickets:
Full/Adult: $22.50
Student/Senior $17.50
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