barebones productions loses faith in the Catholic Church with Unreconciled

As I approached the ticket booth at Barebones Black Box, I was filled with apprehension at visiting the ghosts of my religious past in Unreconciled. I began to curl into myself when a little girl with round blue glasses and a smile of innocence greeted me from her perch behind the counter.

“Can you draw me a picture?” she asked.

It was as if she had been transported from the pages of Saint-Exubery’s The Little Prince and invited me into her world of imagination. I happily obliged. She introduced herself to me as Pepper, and proudly informed me she is 6.5 years old. With lackluster artistic skill, I sketched a scene of evergreen trees on a hillside with a flurry of falling snow.

“It looks like ‘Silent Night,’” she told me.

Shortly after, I found my seat in the intimate theater, and actor/playwright Jay Sefton humbly walked on stage to begin the 80-minute one-man show based on his experiences with child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The show, running through Sun., Feb. 16, makes its Pittsburgh premiere as the opener for barebones productions’ 22nd season.

Sefton — who conceived the show with his co-writer, Mark Basquill — disarms the audience early on with a barrage of humor, the language of the brokenhearted. He sets the scene by detailing how he was cast as Jesus in his eighth grade passion play before divulging his adolescent thoughts about the process, primarily his boyhood crush on the girl cast as the Virgin Mary. He talks about his fantasies of being close to her, and imagines how it will feel to lay in her arms in the pose of Michaelangelo’s “Pieta”. The audience erupted into laughter before Sefton could get the punchline out, a clear sign of the cultural Catholicism in the room.

Sefton is a chameleon in Unreconciled. Each character he portrays is exquisitely distinct. Whether it be his grizzled Philly-born father, a stoic and haunting priest, or his loudmouth childhood neighbors, Sefton entirely transforms his physicality and voice to embody crystal clear characters. The audience is never confused which character is speaking or who is in control — a rarity in solo productions.

His performance is bolstered by a production team that employs every possible technique to remind the audience of Sefton’s reality. As he talks through the Philadelphia of his childhood, video clips from Villanova basketball games are projected above him. When he begins describing the passion play of his youth, actual home video from the production is played overhead.

During the abuse scene, Sefton held his arms out, mimicking a crucifixion while he described the nightmare encounter his childhood priest forced upon him. Sefton could have chosen to delve into graphic depictions of the abuse, but instead gives the audience a clear picture of what is happening without overindulging in the gruesome details of the attack. The audience may not know exactly what the priest is doing to Sefton, but the raw, vulnerable, and completely honest fear he portrays speaks volumes to the severity of the abuse.

After the height of the abuse plays out, home video from Sefton’s actual eighth grade passion play reappears on the screen. No one dared to breathe when faced with the scathing reality that this footage was taken moments after the abuse. In the clip, the passion play proceeds as told every Easter, with Sefton as Jesus calling out for his father.

“My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” Sefton cried with outstretched arms.

Even those who were unfamiliar with this line of scripture, spoken by a crucified Jesus, could feel Sefton’s desperation for salvation. Sefton’s performance perfectly voices the horrible and complex juxtaposition of longing for the abuse to end and the undeniable uniqueness of being chosen by an authority figure. Instead of shying away from the uncomfortable feelings survivors experience, he leans into the intricacies of victimhood and survival.

Sefton, a certified mental health counselor and performer, expertly blends performance with activism. Toward the close of the show, a series of projected slides informed the audience that 24 states had implemented “look-back laws,” legislation that expands the statute of limitations for child sex abuse in order to support survivors coming forward as adults.

Pennsylvania is not one of those states, despite widespread sexual abuse at Catholic dioceses across the commonwealth, including in Pittsburgh. This is according to a grand-jury report released in 2018 by then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

The current look-back laws in Michigan, my home state, are a result of a major court case against the chaplain from my high school. Simply put, I found Sefton’s story profoundly relatable.

Much like my days in Catholic school, I was only able to feel the weight of what I had witnessed once I was alone and no longer sitting in a pew full of people. I sobbed in the car on my way home, mourning for the scared girl in the plaid uniform skirt I once was.

But in that same breath, I grew hopeful that a kid like Pepper would never relate to Unreconciled the way I did, as long as people like the team at barebones productions are brave enough to start the conversation. I dream that Pepper will never recognize the silent, knowing glance between those forever changed by clergy abuse. More than anything, I hope she stays — even for just a moment longer — in the safe, silent, snowy landscape I drew for her.

This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2025.