A Profession of Faith Review: A Rewarding Meditation On Responsibility And Chance
Erin Tan
A Profession of Faith is a play about the intersection of science and religion. However, unlike other medical dramas, like Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi, it isn’t a moral question that jeopardises the life of a patient. Rather, A Profession of Faith operates on a broader, though perhaps more intimate, scale. Here, religion distorts a doctor’s perception of his own actions, of his very being a doctor. It is a play about ‘do no harm’, but to oneself.
Jacinta Ngeh’s script is accomplished, following a surgeon, Dominic, who feeling the burden of his perceived failures, looks elsewhere to understand the randomness of survival. This is brought to life by a universally strong ensemble, spearheaded by a committed and spontaneous Rob Monteiro. Dominika Wiatrowska, moreover, is particularly striking as a mother who cannot move on from the upset of her child’s diagnosis, fiercely grounding a character who could otherwise come across as one-note.
Ngeh has a nimble way with language, effectively teasing out the ominous in the everyday. Even the voicemail reading ‘no new messages’ at the play’s opening carries a weightiness. This is also a product of Jessica Folwell’s sound design which contributes to a strong sense of atmosphere and drive. Hannah Le Selleur’s production has a true awareness of its space, effectively using the two angles of the Corpus Playroom and their awkward intersection to locate the two jagged environments of the hospital and Dominic’s home. The space between these two is therefore the emotional landscape of the play, which belongs to neither of the clearly defined zones.
The production also blurs the line between the real and the imagined in an interesting fashion. Only one patient’s body is depicted suggesting the narrowing of Dominic’s focus. We also see him cross the stage to talk to his wife mid-surgery. This is simultaneously a sort of cinematic cross-cutting between the two environments, but also represents the blurring of his religious home life and scientific profession. This lapse in consciousness, an inwards-looking moment, is itself a sort of prayer, a desperate search for direction, which threatens his professional responsibilities.
Interestingly, the stakes aren’t particularly high. The play isn’t really about whether or not Felicity, the cancer patient, will survive - it’s about whether Dominic can cope with the responsibility of being a doctor. And this isn’t a bad thing - it makes him an everyman figure, representative of the ways in which society could quietly crumble from beneath our feet without us realising. The story doesn’t need to be extreme to be significant.
The thorniness of the play’s content is perhaps undermined by its remarkable neatness. Everything, from teddy bears to church sermons, becomes a metaphor for something else though, impressively, this rarely flattens the ideas themselves. The play is so tightly wound, telling the story from a range of perspectives and occasionally relying too much on coincidence, that it begins to feel more like a diorama which goes through all potential conversations and scenarios. This approach means that there are perhaps too many interesting plot threads for the play’s length. Seeing Dominic chat with his colleagues and touch on relevant themes, for example, is interesting, rather than compelling.
Maybe the play does require a little faith from its audience. The swerve towards comic optimism as the crisis is cleanly resolved rings false in a play which has so far confidently navigated the challenges of unresolved difficulty. Ultimately, however, it gives the audience so much to chew on it doesn’t really matter. Despite these minor reservations, it’s still very much worth the trip to the Corpus Playroom, in part because the profits are going to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, an excellent cause, which adds another layer of significance and feeling to an already sophisticated piece of work.