'Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God' Off-Broadway review — a miraculous solo show
Read our review of Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God off Broadway, co-written and performed by Severance star Jen Tullock at Playwrights Horizons.
Summary
- Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God runs at Playwrights Horizons through November 9
- Severance star Jen Tullock gives a magnetic performance as a writer returning to her hometown and former religious community
- Theatregoers have praised Tullock's performance and the show's design online
- The show is recommended for fans of Tullock; solo shows; and shows with religious themes
One of the best things one can hope for from a theatre experience is a feeling of communion: with the characters, with the artist, with the show, with fellow audience members. We hope for a moment of transcendence or clarity. When it’s hard to find God, at least there are performers seeking some kind of spiritual liberation, like Jen Tullock in Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God, which is with little doubt the best solo show in years.
Written by Tullock and Frank Winters and directed by Jared Mezzocchi, Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God is a sort of queer prodigal-child narrative. Bestselling author Frances, who wrote a memoir about the spiritual exploitation she experienced in her youth, returns home for two reasons: to smooth over an accusation of misrepresenting the church she writes about, and to confront the community that sits at the root of her pain and yearning.
The artist is unmoored, still searching for the words to describe her rawness and disconnectedness. So, or most of the show’s economical 70 minutes, Tullock and Winters create a portrait of Frances through the eyes and mouths of others. We hear from her girlboss lit agent, her Bible reading group-leading brother, her mother, the young Polish woman whom Frances met on a mission, the pastor of her childhood church, and a radio show host. In a clever subversion, we first learn who Frances is by how others perceive her, and how they present themselves to Frances, after all this time. The wounds they pretend have healed, the ripples of her fame they feel back in Louisville, the memories they cherry-pick.
It isn’t until over halfway through that we get bits and pieces of Frances as she is now, contending with competing realities and memories, her time in Kentucky spliced with scenes of the writer answering questions about process, catharsis, and fidelity in nonfiction. Through Stefania Bulbarella’s electrifyingly jagged, glitching video projections, Frances’s reliability as a narrator takes on a palpable urgency as we see the video freeze, fracture, and sputter. Acutely articulated through this method is the feeling of Frances’s self — her memories, her self-narrative, her persona as a writer — on the brink of implosion.
All this is held together by Tullock’s virtuosic performance. She presents various characters at home and in her life as a writer with ease and fullness, and she clearly shows Frances’ preoccupation (and Tullock’s, and the show’s) with finding something in the absence of belief and community. Exquisite work is done in both performance and writing to exhibit Frances’s home as not evil, but haunted by the possibility that its community's idea of love was destructive. In one moment, Frances recalls the fervor with which she would pray with the young Polish woman whom Frances would consider a first love: the trembling hands, the obsessive repetition, the desperate look heavenward.
That Tullock imbues each character with a distinct gesture and cadence is certainly a feat, but that these individual performances complicate and sharpen the protagonist’s own conflicted sense of self — how spiritual concern from authority figures can morph into condescension and suppression — contributes to the show’s richness as a work about the limits and possibilities of art as therapy, healing, or a substitute for home. Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God is miraculous, an exceptional piece of tenderness and solace whose wisdom and insight elevates its form.
Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God summary
Frances Reinhardt is about to release her new book, a memoir about growing up closeted and queer in Louisville, Kentucky. When a snag arises before the publishers can go forward, she goes back home to see the people she grew up with and face the stark differences in their collective memories of safety, enlightenment, and love.
What to expect at Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God
Tullock and Winters are economical writers who capture the rhythms of West Coast publishing people, middlebrow talk show hosts, and townie barbecue attendees alike with reflexive precision. In just over an hour, the two interrogate ideas about home, religious transcendence, literary liberties, memory, and pain with savvy and sharpness.
With stark, minimalist lighting from Amith Chandrashaker and keenly glitchy, looping video work from Bulbarella, it speaks volumes about Tullock that her performance contains the level of magnetism to make these production elements feel, while useful, ultimately secondary to the actor’s stage presence.
What audiences are saying about Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God
Theatregoers — including famous ones — have shared praise for Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God across online platforms.
- “A tour de force performance and captivating show. Unexpectedly funny and only 75 min!” - Show-Score user Dorothy 7
- “I loved the cameras but I was a bit confused at times and not all the characters felt well rounded.” - Show-Score user Ludovica 5159
- “Run don’t walk!” - Patricia Arquette via Instagram
Read more audience reviews of Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God on Show-Score.
Who should see Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God
- Audiences interested in shows about religious trauma will find Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God a revelatory entry into the canon.
- Fans of Tullock in Severance will be awed by her virtuosity on stage.
- Theatergoers interested in solo shows will find that Tullock’s operates at a master level.
Learn more about Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God
Jen Tullock and Frank Winters’s exceptional, funny, and divine Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God imagines a home for those who are homesick but can’t go back.
Photo credit: Jen Tullock in Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God off Broadway. (Photos by Maria Baranova)
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