Megan Gogerty's "Love Jerry'

In 2009, Poland passed a law mandating the post-imprisonment chemical castration of any pedophile who rapes a child under 15. This penalty is too harsh for two reasons: It imposes a life sentence for a non-capital crime, and allows no possibility for redemption or rehabilitation on the part of the abuser.

But Megan Gogerty's fatuous and one-sided Love, Jerry goes a ludicrous step further: It sympathizes with the struggles of a child abuse perpetrator while ignoring his victim's suffering altogether.

Here, the abuser is the victim's uncle Jerry (Scott Boulware), who allows his financially struggling brother Mike (Jered McLenigan) and his wife Kate (Rachael Joffred) to move in to his home. Once installed, he starts grooming their eight-year-old son Andy. The abuse begins with light petting and indecent exposure, and over a series of months progresses to kissing, fondling, fellatio and digital penetration.

In a series of flashbacks and forwards, Gogerty's musical takes a "Hate the sin, love the sinner" approach (even while firing cheap shots at Christianity) in order to ask whether a family can ever come to feel compassion and love for a man who has molested their son.

Before I saw Nice People Theatre Company's production, I felt inclined to give Gogerty credit for doing the artist's job: asking unpopular and challenging questions, no matter how noxious. But she renders the subject matter in a lopsided, intellectually irresponsible manner, rife with inconsistencies.

Catchy music, generic verses

Moreover, crafting this story as a musical adds little. The bluegrass music is catchy, but the songs spring up like iron-on decals on a fitted shirt. Gogerty's lyrics tend to the generic: verses like "Body full of pain that maybe you could ease;/ If you tended to the strain you could give me my release."

I did enjoy discovering the vocal talents of a few Philadelphia actors whom I'd never heard sing. And Rebecca Wright's direction adds tenderness to this tough tale, especially in the relationship between the two brothers.

Unfortunately, 90 plodding minutes barely even suggest why we should feel compassion for Jerry at all. By revealing that Jerry the pedophile was once abused by an uncle, Gogerty seems to side with the notion that pedophiles are made, not born. Perhaps— and perhaps the solution, as Gogerty suggests, lies in therapy, or abstinence, or even, by extension, "real dolls" that pedophiles can play with in lieu of flesh-and-blood kids.

The forgotten piece

Whatever the solution, Gogerty willfully ignores the elephant in the room. There's plenty of room for sympathy for men like Jerry who've been demonized for behavior they can't control. The real question though, isn't whether or not we can "love Jerry"; it's how we can live with him.

"A litmus test for society," Gogerty declares, "is how well we're willing to support those we detest." She strikes me as a useful idiot in the cause of pedophilia normalization♦


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