NO ECSTASY TO BE FOUND

An effort to portray religious
transcendence lacks focus and context

Treehouse Collective describes itself as an ensemble-based theater company “dedicated to producing rarely performed works.” In the case of Mariette in Ecstasy, I suspect there is a reason the work is rarely performed. The play takes place in a convent, the Sisters of the Crucifixion, in the early 20th century. We are told that this order began in France and fled during the Revolution, moving to Belgium and the United States, but we don’t know where this particular convent is located. The characters speak English, French, and Latin, and at one point a reference is made to Chicago baseball teams.

Amanda Burke (foreground) with Britt Ambruson, Hannah Young, and Cayd Barrera

The entire first act is a slow-moving introduction to convent life, with a lot of chanting and cleaning. The ever-beatific and beautiful Mariette (Amanda Burke) attracts some nuns and incites jealousy in others, but nothing much happens until the end of Act I, when a traumatic death apparently incites Mariette’s first full-blown religious vision.

The second act proceeds at a more feverish pitch (literally), with Mariette’s religious seizures becoming more extreme. She sprouts bloody stigmata on her palms and a wound in her side, echoing the effects of the crucifixion of Christ. These developments increase the controversies surrounding her within the convent.

Amanda Burke (foreground) with cast of Mariette in Ecstasy

Burke is quite good at portraying Mariette’s religious fervor, but the nine other nuns are not well enough differentiated to make their responses to Mariette interesting. We have no idea why any of them entered the convent or what religious experiences or convictions they have. These kinds of distinctions might be clearer in the source of the play, Ron Hansen’s novel of the same name, but as adapted by Christina Calvit and directed by Katie Swimm, the play cannot carry the burden of so many characters in a way that gives them meaning.

Djessy Kungu, the male priest, is hard to understand. Mariette’s father, Bryan O’Hara, appears from time to time, but again, we have no clue as to how he feels about his daughter, her decision to join the convent, or her religious experiences.

Djessy Kungu and Amanda Burke

As with another, more successful Treehouse Collective production (Bull in a China Shop), too much time in an already too-long production is spent moving furniture. In this case, Britt Ambruson‘s set consists of a large cross at one end of the black box and a kind of grill at the other end that functions at times as a gate and at others as the interior of a confessional. The whole thing takes place in a convent, and yet there is a lot of rearranging of chairs. Time spent on seating arrangements might have been better spent on character development—or even better, on reducing the length of this tedious and confusing production.

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photos by Val Tracy-Indrakaran

Mariette in Ecstasy
Treehouse Collective
Black Box Theater at Boston Center for the Arts
2 hours 30 minutes, with intermission
ends on April 19, 2026
for tickets, visit Boston Theatre Scene

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BIO: Lynne Weiss is a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association. Her work has also appeared in Literary Ladies Guide and in The Common, Black Warrior Review, and the Ploughshares Blog. She has an MFA from UMass Amherst. A lifelong social justice activist, she is at work on a novel set in 1930s Cornwall. Her reviews, travel tales, and progressively optimistic opinions are on her substack.