Review: Having fun with 'God's Favorite'

In the Old Testament, God allows Satan to test Job's virtue and sends four messengers to tell the pious man of the calamities that have taken away his children, his wealth and his health. In Neil Simon's comedy "God's Favorite," based on the Book of Job, the proportions of the disasters are not quite as biblical, and the outcome is much funnier.

"God's Favorite" opens tonight at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau.

Joe Benjamin (Stephen Moxley) is a successful businessman and family man who made his fortune in corrugated boxes. He is visited by a deliciously flawed messenger of God named Sidney Lipton (Blake Palmer). Speaking in riddles, the messenger tells Joe Benjamin he is God's absolute favorite and promises that the tests can be avoided if he will only renounce God. Benjamin refuses.

Audiences will hoot as Moxley squirms through yet another calamity and Palmer goes over the top -- right where he belongs -- in his mission to hear some version of the word "Uncle."

One of Simon's lesser produced plays, "God's Favorite" has a moral and a funny bone. A man in excruciating physical agony might not sound humorous, but in Simon's hands it often is. And a messenger of God who insists that Satan looks just like Robert Redford only hints at the rumples in Sidney Lipton's trench coat.

Megan Moore plays Joe's wife, Rose, who sleeps with earplugs and grabs her jewelry box when the burglar alarm sounds.

Andy McIntyre and Mariah Thompson play their loyal twin children, Ben and Sarah. Sarah's inability to keep her bathrobe closed is the play's running joke.

Adam Parker is the profligate son David, who's unafraid of doubting either his father or God.

Serena Poppen and Jared James round out the cast as the Benjamins' servants, Malena and Manuel.

Dennis Seyer, recently retired from the Department of Theatre and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University, is the guest director, substituting for his friend Cynthia King. King, who has headed the drama department at Notre Dame for more than 35 years, was on medical leave for a month at the beginning of the school year.

Seyer also is responsible for the scenic and lighting design and technical direction. He is assisted by student Katelyn Enderle.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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