Theatre - Episcopal epiphanies & same-sex love

When mother and son do verbal battle in The Busy World Is Hushed, the topics aren't the usual fodder of parental disagreements. "I refuse to discuss predetermination and predestination again," says Hannah, an Episcopal minister, to her renegade son Thomas. Obviously, in this household, even lofty topics can get tired. What use is there in trying to be good if God has already marked a reprobate's path for you? I'm just going with the flow, Thomas suggests to his mother.

Keith Bunin's theo-serio-comic play, seen in New York in 2006, is an ambitious work that creates an unstable energy when cosmic religious visions collide with unvarnished feelings between mother and son. Under Robin Stanton's steady direction, Aurora Theatre is presenting the professional West Coast debut of The Busy World Is Hushed — a title borrowed from an Episcopal benediction of solace.

Interestingly, the mother-son collision has little to do with Thomas being gay, a big issue of late in the Episcopal Church, but of less interest to Hannah than the fact that Thomas arrives home from one of his worrisome wanderings with a collection of porcupine quills protruding from his ankle. Because her husband, and Thomas' father, wandered off into the sea when she was pregnant with her only child, she wants to prevent a repeat performance.

 Theatre - Episcopal epiphanies & same-sex love