THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
Executive Director, Crystal Field
Presents
Four Evangelists Walk into a Fog
by Douglas Lackey
Founding of a major new world religion is an occasion for intellectual dark comedy.
May 1 – May 18, 2025
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00 PM, Sunday at 3:00 PM
Tickets $20 tickets, $15 Students and Seniors
Run Time: 1 hour 15 minutes plus intermission
JOHNSON THEATER
THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY
155 First Avenue (between 9th and 10th Street)
New York, NY 10003
Directions
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote four differing gospels and created Christianity. These four evangelists actually never met, but they do–as members of a comedic literary synod –in “Four Evangelists Walk into a Fog” by Douglas Lackey. The results are hilarious and profound. Theater for the New City (TNC), which has been Lackey’s theatrical home since 2003, will present the work’s premiere run May 1 to 18, directed by Mark Harborth.
Playwright Douglas Lackey has two lives, as a playwright and a philosophy professional. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale and is a Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College, CUNY, where he has taught since 1972. As a playwright, he specializes in serious portraits of historical/intellectual figures in moral dilemmas, including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Giulio Caesare Vanini (a free-thinking physician-philosopher of 17th century Italy), Bertrand Russell, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, and General Heywood Hansell (who advocated for a strategy of daylight precision bombing over saturation bombing in WWII). All of Lackey’s previous plays at TNC have been praised for their deft mixtures of philosophy, romance and politics. He has also written several other historical plays that he calls “comedies of ideas.” This is one of them.
It was inevitable, perhaps, that Mr. Lackey would take up the subject of contradictions among the Gospels, which is quite popular in theological, academic, and secular circles. It has been widely discussed for centuries and remains an active topic in biblical studies, apologetics, and skeptical critiques of Christianity. The four Gospels differ on key details, which include Jesus’ genealogy, his final words on the cross and the timing of the resurrection appearances. Mark and John omit the virgin birth. Paul’s letters, written earlier than these four accounts, rarely mention Jesus’ earthly life and contradict Gospel accounts on the resurrection’s witnesses and Jesus’ teachings on the Law.
These various disagreements provide food for fun and amicable debate in the play, with the contradictions providing natural comedic tension. It could be mistaken for a debate between philosophy professors in the faculty lounge of an American college. The foursome are aware that their writings will become the foundation of a major world religion, so their tone is collegial and good-natured. If there is any intellectual critique, it is based on logic. Comedic anachronisms heighten the satire as the evangelists struggle with the weight of shaping a new faith, bickering over details while Mary Magdalene, their “reality check,” cuts through their abstractions with raw lived experience. It’s done with rapid-fire dialogue, shifting alliances and moments of deep introspection. Think “No Exit” meets “The West Wing” with a theological twist.
Lackey even manages to inject some backstage humor, as in this argument:
John: The psalms say the Messiah’s bones shall not be broken. No broken legs. Let’s move on to the Resurrection.
Matthew: We have problems with the resurrection. Lots of skepticism. Many Jews say the body was stolen from the tomb. Some even say that the followers of Jesus hired an actor to go around Judea pretending to be Jesus. The actor put holes in his hands to make it real.
Mark: Who would believe that? No actor will put holes through his hands just to get paid.
Luke: Apparently you don’t know many actors.
Douglas Lackey has a 22 year relationship with Theater for the New City, which has presented all his plays to-date. His first play, “Kaddish in East Jerusalem” (2003), dealt with issues of the Second Intifada. His “Daylight Precision” (2014) was a historical drama examining “just war” theories through an unsung hero of World War II, Gen. Haywood Hansell. Lackey’s “Arendt-Heidegger: A Love Story” (2018) dramatized the unlikely romance between Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. His “Ludwig and Bertie” (2019) charted the forty-year love/hate relationship between Bertrand Russell and his most famous student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. His “The Wayward Daughter of Judah the Prince” (2021) was a sort of a philosopher’s “Thelma and Louise” in which the daughter of Judah the Prince (compiler of The Mishnah–the core section of The Talmud) runs off with her Christian slave girl lover to measure herself against the conflicting philosophies of the period. His “Spies for the Pope” (2023) charted the tragic career of Giulio Caesare Vanini (1585-1619), an Italian philosopher recruited by the Vatican (in Lackey’s telling) for an impossible mission: averting the Thirty Years War by reconciling the Catholic and Protestant antagonisms in key European countries. All these plays have been critically praised as explosive dramas of ideas, romance and politics.
Lackey writes, “I am grateful to Crystal Field and Theater for the New City for encouraging me to present this story. TNC is willing to take on my ‘comedies of ideas’ and these are quite different from the contemporary obsession with plays of jumbled identities and failed relationships. Kudos to a theater that will buck the mainstream.”
Director Mark Harborth was Producing Artistic Director of Gallery Players in Brooklyn, where he has staged “Ragtime,” “Dreamgirls,” “Gypsy,” “Evita,” “Rent,” “It Shoulda Been You,” “A Few Good Men,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Chess” and “Run For Your Wife,” among others. His regional credits include “Hello Dolly,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “High Spirits,” “Chicago,” “Children of a Lesser God,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Pirates of Penzance.” He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
CAST
Zephyr Caulfield (Matthew)
John Gionis (Mark)
Nick Freedson (Luke)
Matthew Foley (John)
Andy English (Paul)
Barbara McCulloh (Mary Magdalene)
PRODUCTION
Set design is by Jerry Mittelhauser
Lighting design is by Scott Cally
Costume design is by Joey Haws
Stage manager is Cassidy Byron