Presented by the Treehouse Collective
Based on the best-selling novel by Ron Hansen.
Adapted by Christina Calvit
Directed by Katie Swimm
Fight choreography by Shira Cahn-Lipman
Featuring: Carla Perrotta, Martha Warren, Michelle Leibowitz, Jaryn Wilcox, Lauren Foster, Grace Duffey, Cayd Barrera, Britt Ambruson, Hannah Young, Amanda Burke, Djessy Kungu, Brian O’Hara

April 3-19, 2026
Boston Center for the Arts
539 Tremont St, Boston, 
Boston, MA 02116

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON — Mariette in Ecstasy mixes themes from shows like Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler with Miller’s The Crucible (or 2004’s Mandy Moore & Jena Malone vehicle, a satiric take on the evangelical purity movement, Saved!). Treehouse Collective’s production ran through April 19. So if you’re reading this article, and this sounds like your idea of fun, then I’m sorry; you’ve missed your chance. 

In turn-of-the-century upstate New York, Mariette Baptiste (Amanda Burke) enters the convent of the Sisters of the Crucifixion at the ripe, hormonal age of 17. The convent is run by her earthly sister, Reverend Mother Celine (Carla Perrotta). Mariette, like the other young sisters of the convent, is crazy bananas in love with their forever boyfriend, your savior and mine, Jesus of Nazareth. The young nuns dream of subjugating themselves to the Lord – not through years of hard, thankless work as the convent demands. No, they want to perform their subjugation to their holy husband immediately for public approval. None is more zealously devoted than Mariette. 

Despite the repeated warnings of Mother Saint Raphael (Martha Warren), the girls push their obsession with Christ to blasphemous extremes. The convent leadership led by Pere Mariott (Djessy Kungu) warns them against their tantrums, so-called divine visitations and visions. Then, Mariette begins to bleed from her hands, feet, and side— all signs of receiving the crucifixion marks of Christ. The nuns and their priest don’t know if Mariette’s marks are real or a deceit. Mariette in Ecstasy explores questions of faith, fear, and sexuality against the backdrop of a convent in the early 20th century. Michelle Leibowitz, Jaryn Wilcox, Lauren Foster, Grace Duffey, Cayd Barrera, Britt Ambruson, and Hannah Young complete the female ensemble. Brian O’Hara plays Dr. Baptiste. 

The Treehouse Collective is an ensemble for artists of all ages to learn and practice their skills. It takes risks. Mariette in Ecstasy is an advanced play. Its cast and crew do some fine acting work in it. But its successes are possible largely due to the practiced, patient talents of the cast’s more experienced actors: Perrotta, Warren, Leibowitz, Foster, and O’Hara. They and their work formed a solid foundation for the younger actors to develop their talents. 

A weighty play like Mariette in Ecstasy requires more stamina and life experience from its actors. The experienced actors were more confident. I imagine they can recall what teenage holy/hedonistic fervor felt like as a teen. (Hormones are a potent substance.) They like I have lived long enough to have watched others go through it. They’ve performed enough to realistically recreate it on the stage. 

The other actors have great potential. We can see it in their ensemble work and their burgeoning talents. Their performances contained moments of brilliance, and they should feel proud of their work. While this play was a bit ambitious for them, the experience they gained from this production will help them in the next one. There is great value in performing works beyond your strengths. It’s how you learn. 

The playful scenes with the young nuns and the ensemble work scenes worked best. The cast kept their energy up, and they created intimate, unscripted moments that showed us the depth of their characters. Scenes with fewer actors were less successful due the actors’ uneven pacing and unclear choices. Stillness and silence can be difficult to navigate; it’s more vulnerable than the fear and intensity of mad scenes. It takes great energy, training, and practice to convey meaning between actors and into an expectant audience. 

That being said, the play’s mad scenes by Director Swimm and Fight Choreographer Shira Cahn-Lipman were well-paced and creatively choreographed. Mariette’s madness naturally flowed from one scene into the next. In them, Burke and her fellow actors effectively shocked and awed their audience with their intensity. 

In my twenties, I knew a Boston Conservatory dance major who pursued social work after receiving her Bachelor’s degree. Molly called religion the last great mass delusion. The public sphere no longer suffered any other type of hallucination. All of humanity’s other mass fantasies, such as the Earth’s rotation around the sun, were proven false through scientific evidence.

Meanwhile, a large majority of the U.S. population believes a sky dude, who ritually sacrificed his own son, watches us like Santa. I don’t pretend to know what is real, but I do know that teenagers like taking center stage and creating a scene. If emotions feel real enough, we can convince ourselves they are real. I’ve seen teens and adults fake it until they make it in the arts and in the church. It goes to show that even though times and technology change, human teenagers and their hormones remain the same. It’s up to the viewer to decide if Mariette in Mariette in Ecstasy experienced genuine stigmata or not.

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