Ethical Questions Arise in John Patrick Shanley's 'Storefront Church'

John Patrick Shanley deals with thorny ethical questions in his plays. In his newest drama "Storefront Church," which is the third in his "Church and State" trilogy that also includes "Doubt" and "Defiance," the Pulitzer-Tony-Oscar winning writer explores an evolving conflict among a Bronx borough president, a mortgage loan officer, a couple losing their home, and a preacher who opens a storefront church. To survive the characters must make less than exemplary moral choices.

The play, now at the Atlantic Theater Company, does not offer easy answers. "Conscience is the most dangerous thing you possess," Shanley says. "If you wake it up it may destroy you. To live a life of total moral rigor is not necessarily the way to go. It's the path for very few people. Most people need to come up with some kind of middle ground that satisfies their practical, moral, and philosophical esthetic needs."

The affable, amused, and somewhat harried Shanley admits facing multiple challenges with "Storefront Church," not least examining complex issues within the parameters of a two-hour play. He's already re-written the final scene 25 times during rehearsals. Not an easy feat if he wore only the playwright's hat, but he's also directing. "A director would hate me for taking up all this time re-writing the last scene," he remarks. "So instead of someone else hating me I hate me for taking up so much of my time."

Still, he's been stunningly fortunate in pulling together a high-level cast: Bob Dishy, Giancarlo Esposito, Zach Grenier, Ron Cephas Jones, Jordan Lage, and Tonya Pinkins. "They are at home in my language and universe," he points out. "Some actors are brilliant in David Mamet, but they would crash and burn in my plays and visa-versa. You either have my music in your body or you don't."

Shanley is open to receiving input from actors, citing Tonya Pinkins as "an endless provocateur about her character. She was very helpful even if at points I wanted to jump out the window. I didn't want Tonya's character Jessie to be endorsing religion or extorting the audience to start praying. Yet Jessie is overweighed with spiritual concerns. So, how do you do that and what would it look like unless you were really devout? Tonya was looking for consistency of character. I re-wrote it on the basis of her provocation."

Closure at Cardinal Spellman
The Bronx-born Shanley undoubtedly has an ambivalent relationship with the church. He attended Cardinal Spellman High School, but couldn't function there , and was thrown out after two years. Still, it was pleasing when not too long ago, "They asked me to come back [as a speaker] and all was forgiven," he recalls. "It was a nice sense of closure."

Though Shanley wrote as a youngster, he never thought he could make a living at it. As she describes it he was a young man at loose ends. After a five year tour of duty in the Marine Corps, Shanley matriculated at New York University, majored in English, and ultimately graduated as valedictorian. But the turning point was a playwriting course he took and for the first time he knew what he wanted to do.

He began writing but, like many artists, he had long periods of poverty and anonymity. "It wasn't until I was 35 or 36 when I wrote 'Danny and the Deep Blue Sea' that I began to get some notoriety, though I only made $5,000." Still, he earned an NEA grant and saw his first screenplay, "Five Corners," produced. "It changed my life financially," he acknowledges. "My rent was $750 and I got a check for $85,000." His next film, "Moonstruck," won him an Oscar for best original screenplay and provided a transformative moment, leading to a working relationship with Steven Spielberg and enduring friendships with producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. "It was high tide and green grass," he says.

Shanley continues to view small downtown venues as the best settings for beginning playwrights. "For ten years I worked in 50-70 seat houses and I still like them best. You can do plays in your living room and that's a worthy thing to do too. The deep bottom end is always the most interesting. That's where fermentation takes place and where people can come together to form long term artistic collaborations as they work for a common cause. That's the most exciting thing and once in a while something will explode out of that into the mainstream."

"Storefront Church" runs through June 24 at the Linda Gross Theater (Atlantic Theater Company), 336 W. 20th St., 212-279-4200, www.ticketcentral.com.

Outtakes
-Wrote such plays as "Savage in Limbo," "Four Dogs and a Bone," "Beggars in the House of Plenty," and "Dirty Story."
-The film version of "Doubt," which he also directed, was nominated for five Oscars. Other films include "Alive," "Joe Versus the Volcano," (which he helmed), and "Live From Baghdad" for HBO, earning an Emmy nomination. He was awarded The Writers Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing.
-He is currently working on a series of one-act plays centering on issues surrounding internationalism.