David Zinn’s remarkable set design of the altar area of small Midwestern Roman Catholic Church is exactly where that altar would be in the church that is now the Atlantic Theatre where Bubba Weiler’s “The Saviors” is currently playing. The important ritual of confession, forgiveness, and redemption that occurred in that former Chelsea church is not present in Weiler’s play despite Zinn’s set. There is no religious “Savior” in this narrative, nor are there any “lay saviors” among the cast despite their attempt to save one another and/or themselves. Instead, Weiler stages something far more intimate and unsettling: the devotion that persists despite the absence of redemption. When in the play’s final scene thirteen-year-old Michael, in the depths of spiritual crisis, hears Paul recite the Lord’s Prayer, he joins him — not because faith has been restored, but because Paul is there. The play asks not ‘Can we save each other?’ but ‘Can we love each other in a world where salvation is impossible?’

Julius Rinzel’s fourteen-year-old Paul is “confident and kind, with a simmering curiosity that could burst him open.” He is also struggling with his faith commitment and his need to be confirmed before graduating middle school. Paul shares his Mass schedule with his thirteen-year-old friend Michael. Ivan Howe’s Michael has a “steadfast devotion to God and to Paul and becomes more insecure every day.” That insecurity comes from the secret he harbors that he believes will destroy his devotion to both his best friend and to his God.

Michael’s insecurity heightens when the twenty-three-year-old Julian wanders off the street into the church and heads directly to the altar and begins to pray. Stanley Simons’s Julian is “lost, hurting, and eager to show his heart.” He was an altar boy at the church as a boy, moved away and has returned to his home which is now occupied by a new owner, leaving Julian homeless. Paul offers the church as sanctuary for Julian. Michael is horrified by the thought. Julian is also harboring a secret which has the potential to cause a rift between the current altar boys. Paul shares his secret with Julian when they are alone, the secret which is at the heart of the play’s rising action from this point on.

In a crucial scene, Michael shows up at youth group concerned that Paul hasn’t arrived yet. Judy, the group’s adult counselor, is anxious to move on with her agenda. Crystal Finn’s Judy is “caring, quietly intense and If she doesn’t keep busy, she’ll fall apart completely.” The reason she needs to keep busy is that she, too, has a secret which will shatter Michael’s faith in Judy and his hope to have her as his confirmation sponsor. Weiler has unfolded these secrets carefully, and when they are revealed, the audience understands that any good deed done by these ‘saviors’ will not go unpunished.

These secrets and the relationships built upon them unravel during several crucial scenes from “The Saviors.” During the youth group meeting, Judy decides to do a “Christian meditation with Michael. After guiding him through the meditation, she has Michael at his own funeral in the casket. When asked who will visit him, he responds, “Paul.” When she asks Michael what he wants to say to Paul, he “loses focus” and ends the meditation. What he wants to say will be revealed in the final scene. But the thought of telling Judy what he would say to Paul traumatizes him.

In the final scene of “The Saviors,” some — but not complete — resolution to the narrative’s conflict is reached. Michael’s faith in himself (his self-denied gender status), Judy, and his faith has been seriously damaged. Although he has made the play’s first true confession to Julian, has asked for his forgiveness, and given Julian the money he took back from Judy, Michael is still in crisis. His center is not holding. He confesses to Paul his failure to help him believe in God: “Because I was trying to like save you. So like. Sorry for…caring. And for wanting you to like. Go to heaven. And believe in God. And like. Be my friend.” After sharing with Paul that, “Because I’ve always just done what I’m supposed to do, but now I don’t really know what that is because,” Michael falls into a corner of the altar far upstage right, facing Paul and not the audience.

Unfortunately, due to Jack Serio’s staging, it is impossible to hear what the boys are saying during Michael’s panic. Hearing Michael and Paul clearly throughout the play was problematic, and there was neither directorial nor sound design intervention to correct this serious problem. We only know from the script that as Michael’s panic attack intensifies, Paul begins to pray the Lord’s Prayer over and over, inviting Michael to join him. Eventually Michael is able to calm down and join Paul in reciting the Lord’s Prayer—here a prayer for healing and redemption.

The climax of the scene and of the play occurs when Michael openly professes his love for Paul, the words he was unable to share with Judy at the youth group meeting: “It doesn’t matter but. What I had to say to you was. Okay don’t say anything but what I had to say to you was that I love you, okay? Don’t say anything. Okay? Okay.” The boys sit beside each other in silence, not looking at each other. This is not redemption. It is grace — the modest, stubborn choice to remain present to each other despite the certainty that faith, in God or in people, offers no salvation. Whether they can rediscover their faith in one another — now that Paul knows the depth of Michael’s love — remains unresolved. And that unresolution is precisely Weiler’s point.

“There are two fundamental failures: Weiler writes scenes that introduce conflict without clear resolution, and he fails to give his actors sufficient space to fully develop their characters — a particular waste given their authenticity and believability. Director Jack Serio compounds this problem by failing to allow his cast to reach their full potential. Most egregiously, he stages crucial moments (particularly the closing prayer) in ways that obscure rather than illuminate, leaving an audience that cannot hear the dialogue to guess at meaning. The result is that ‘The Saviors’ survives not because it works, but because it has enough structural integrity that an engaged audience can excavate what the production obscures.”