Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness: A User's Guide

When Mary and Grace, two fundamentalist Christian homemakers, found MOTOREDE (aka, The Movement to Restore Decency), an “organization” devoted to family values, guns, and supporting your local police, they suddenly find themselves engaging in sexual escapades with each other. This is only the beginning of how far the devil will go to tempt perfectly decent citizens into a life of sin. In a media saturated,...
When Mary and Grace, two fundamentalist Christian homemakers, found MOTOREDE (aka, The Movement to Restore Decency), an “organization” devoted to family values, guns, and supporting your local police, they suddenly find themselves engaging in sexual escapades with each other. This is only the beginning of how far the devil will go to tempt perfectly decent citizens into a life of sin. In a media saturated, Expressionistic setting, Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness provides a tragi-comic view into the absurdity of far right Christian fundamentalism, Tea Party values, and the hypocrisy that lives just beneath the surface of a stringent system of beliefs perpetrated by some of this country’s biggest hypocrites: televangelists and politicians going to any lengths to win over more believers. Since the play premiered in September 2016, Donald Trump became the 45th president and the paranoia, fear, and hatred exhibited by the characters in CGM have become all the more commonplace in our everyday lives. What was a pre-election warning has become an urgent call to action in defense of our most sacred democratic ideals, though the play pointedly leaves interpretation up to each audience member.
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Cleanliness, Godliness, and Madness: A User's Guide

Recommended by

  • Greg Lam:
    5 Dec. 2018
    A political satire first produced in the run-up to the 2016 election. Sadly, it's more relevant than ever! A searing indictment of right wing demagoguery by characters who are not living up to their preaching. It's a multimedia script, with visuals occasionally commenting on the action on stage. With that said, it's also very funny and adventurous and not just a one-sided polemic. Speaking with the playwright for my podcast, a surprising amount of the seemingly cartoonish demagogues was drawn from her own family upbringing.

    This play is an episode of Boston Podcast Players (https://www.bostonpodcastplayers.com/updates/2019/3/6/charlotte-meehan)

Character Information

  • MARY
    30s,
    White
    ,
    (assigned female at birth - plot relevant)
    Because this play interrogates White Supremacy, the two lead female characters are white.
  • GRACE
    40s,
    White
    ,
    (assigned female at birth - plot relevant) Female
    Because this play interrogates White Supremacy, the two lead female characters are white.
  • HARRY
    30s-40s,
    White
    ,
    (assigned male at birth - plot relevant) Male
    Because this play interrogates White Supremacy, the two male characters (onscreen only) are white.
  • DICK
    40s,
    White
    ,
    (assigned male at birth - plot relevant) Male
    Because this play interrogates White Supremacy, the two male characters (who are onscreen only) are white.

Development History

  • Commission
    ,
    Sleeping Weazel (www.sleepingweazel.com)
    ,
    2016

Production History

  • Professional
    ,
    Boston Center for the Arts (a Sleeping Weazel production)
    ,
    2016