A ‘Temple’ worthy of veneration at the Aurora

Aurora Theatre Company’s “Temple” invokes the pantheon of theater history.

Opening Thursday, April 20, Steve Waters’ play, making its U.S. premiere, dramatizes the decision by the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral (Paul Whitworth) about how to deal with Occupy protesters camped outside the landmark London church.

Above all else, you might hear George Bernard Shaw in the way the drama pits progressivism against capitalism, in the characters’ quintessentially British restraint, in the way the dean answers urgent questions with droll koans about church history, each of them laden with three or four subordinate clauses.

Rich as its theatrical antecedents are, this gripping drama, based on real events in London in 2011, is also refreshingly contemporary.

By the end of the play, you might find yourself agreeing with, or at least understanding, a course of action you would have found objectionable walking into the Berkeley theater.

Isn’t this exactly what theater is supposed to do — make you empathize with a point of view you’re inclined to reject — yet so rarely actually does?

[...] allowing you to underestimate her early in the play makes her small triumphs toward the end feel even richer.

If cooler heads ultimately prevail in “Temple,” you leave the play with a much deeper appreciation for all the internal combustion that goes into presenting and maintaining priestly calm and dignity.