The Cost of Compassion: Amish Tragedy as Modern Mirror in New Production

The Keegan Theatre once again presents a powerful performance on their intimate stage in their emotionally heartwrenching yet hopeful and inspiring production of the play, Everything is Wonderful, written by Chelsea Marcantel and directed by Josh Sticklin. The production’s impressive blend of acting, evocative set design, and even an unexpected sweet and somber musical number, pull the audience into the compelling story of an Amish family forever changed by fateful events.

Broken Hymns: Storytelling Through Shattered Lives

After tragedy strikes, Eric (Max Johnson) seeks repentance among an Amish family who shares in the tragedy. The Amish family patriarch, Jacob (Michael McGovern), and matriarch, Esther (Susan Marie Rhea), are torn over how to deal with Eric’s contrition. The tragedy’s reach impacts the lives of daughters Miri (Leah Packer) and Ruth (Sasha Rosenbaum) as the girls navigate their own grief while also dealing with the attentions of Amish suitor Abram (Ben Clark), whose presence and persistence in flashbacks and present-day confrontations hints at a more complex and problematic history as the story unfolds. All these threads connect the characters as they each cope with faith, forgiveness, and futures as lives within and beyond the Amish community collide. 

The actors deftly and poignantly explore these emotions through their characters. Eric seemingly seeks both punishment and absolution. Jacob feels compelled, perhaps grudgingly, to help Eric on his path to redemption. Esther’s overwhelming grief understandably is in conflict with her faith’s obligation to forgive. Miri is coping with her own victimization from someone who wronged her and her community’s presumption of her somehow being at fault. Abram seeks his own absolution, but in ways that cause more harm. And Ruth’s pursuit of peace through simplicity offers a counterpoint to her elders’ burdens, her youthful idealism becoming an unwitting beacon for those mired in grief’s complexities.

Stitches Without Thread: The Forgiveness Paradox

Marcantel’s play delves into the tension between communal ideals of mercy and individual anguish, crafting a narrative where characters must navigate the chasm between doctrinal compassion and raw emotional truth. The playwright notes contemporary relevance in our polarized society, suggesting that the Amish approach to reconciliation, while imperfect, offers provocative insights about empathy’s power to rebuild broken connections. 

Pen as Plowshare: Marcantel’s Creative Cultivation

Chelsea Marcantel’s biography reads like an American cross-country creative odyssey. Raised in Louisiana’s Cajun country, her professional pursuits have sent her from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic, and from Appalachia to the West Coast. A Juilliard playwright fellow, she’s earned numerous awards and a Pulitzer nomination. Her works include Airness, Everything is Wonderful, Tiny Houses, The Upstairs Department, Citizen Detective, and The Monster. She’s also been a part of several Disney films as part of Disney’s Animation Story Trust, including contributions to the sequels of fan favorites Moana and Zootopia. Her talents extend to film, having written the short films Ravel and Holy Fans. 

Grace in the Crucible: Empathy’s Essentialness

In this crucible of faith and forgiveness, Everything Is Wonderful transcends its Amish setting to ask universal questions about the cost of compassion. The Keegan ensemble breathes raw humanity into Marcantel’s richly layered text, each performance a masterclass in emotional precision. From Johnson’s gut-wrenching penitence to Rosenbaum’s luminous resilience, the cast charts a harrowing yet hopeful path through grief’s wilderness. Sticklin’s direction ensures that every silence resonates as profoundly as the script’s most searing revelations. In an era where empathy’s essentialness is needed ever more to bridge societal divides, the Keegan’s production of Everything Is Wonderful becomes more than a meditation on tragedy. This production becomes a radical act of theatrical empathy, challenging audiences to consider how brokenness might, against all odds, pave the way toward grace.

Everything is Wonderful at The Keegan Theatre is showing from 13 September through 5 October 2025. Tickets are available at https://keegantheatre.com/portfolio/everything-is-wonderful/