Jordan E. Cooper’s “Oh Happy Day!” at The Public Theater promises to explore whether a queer man rejected and abused by the church can choose his own happiness on his own terms. It’s a radical question that deserves a radical answer. But Cooper delivers a morality tale about earning God’s love through forgiveness and obedience instead. His protagonist Keyshawn (played by Cooper), a sex worker murdered by the pastor who abused him as a teenager, is given one chance at redemption: save his homophobic family from a biblical flood, release all hatred, and he’ll earn his place in a heavenly house. By the time Keyshawn opens that illuminated door at play’s end, supposedly transformed and redeemed, the moment feels hollow and unearned—not because of the performances, which struggle valiantly, but because Cooper has asked the right question and then been too afraid to follow where it leads.

Cooper doesn’t trust this story enough to tell it straight. Instead, he buries it under layers of theatrical machinery that distract from rather than deepen the emotional journey. The Divines—three ancient femme spirits who guide souls to the afterlife—function as a gospel Greek chorus, entering periodically to sing, offer comic commentary, and move the plot forward when it stalls. They’re meant to provide levity and spiritual insight, but their variety show banter (“This is what four thousand years old looks like when you moisturize!”) undercuts the gravity of Keyshawn’s trauma. More problematic is Cooper’s decision to have God possess different family members throughout the play—first Kevin (Keyshawn’s 12-year-old nephew), then Niecy (his sister), then Lewis (his father). Each possession stops the action cold while God delivers exposition, instructions, or metaphysical lectures. What could be haunting—the voice of God coming through the people who wounded you—instead becomes a repetitive gimmick. By the time God possesses all three family members simultaneously in the final scene, the device has lost any emotional or theological weight. These aren’t plot mechanics that advance the story; they’re obstacles preventing Cooper from engaging with the raw material at the play’s center: Can a queer man murdered by his abuser and rejected by his family choose happiness without forgiving everyone?

Director Stevie Walker-Webb and the cast work valiantly to navigate Cooper’s tonal whiplash, but no amount of skilled performance can rescue a play at war with itself. Cooper himself, playing Keyshawn, brings raw vulnerability to the role, but he’s tasked with ping-ponging between trauma survivor, comic straight man, and spiritual seeker—often within the same scene. The supporting cast fares better: Tamika Lawrence as Niecy grounds the family drama with lived-in exhaustion, Donovan Louis Bazemore brings affecting maturity to 12-year-old Kevin, and Brian D. Coats brings unexpected tenderness to Lewis’s eventual breakdown. The three Divines (Tiffany Mann, Sheléa Melody McDonald, Latrice Pace) have gorgeous voices that deserve better material than Cooper gives them. Donald Lawrence’s original gospel songs are powerful, but they arrive as interruptions rather than revelations, stopping the emotional momentum to deliver musical sermons. The production’s greatest achievement is Luciana Stecconi’s set—a weathered house that literally comes apart as Keyshawn dismantles it to build his boat—which provides the only sustained visual metaphor for what Cooper is attempting: tearing down the old structure to build something new. But even this striking image can’t save a play that, in the end, rebuilds the same oppressive theology it claims to dismantle.

The play buries its central question—”Can you choose your own happiness when life has chosen suffering for you?”—under layers of plot mechanics, tonal shifts, and exposition. “Oh Happy Day!” ultimately gives a conservative answer: forgive your abusers, release hatred, earn God’s love, get your reward. This is not the answer members of the LGBTQ community need. They already have God’s love. What is needed is acceptance, agency, and equality—not another play that loses itself while its protagonist attempts to find his redemption.