The crux of [The Runner Stumbles] is not so much the inevitability of the priest and the nun falling in love, which it is clear will happen from the start despite his effort to resist it, but the conflict between formality and humanity. "The church is for rules," he didactically insists. "God is for people," she counters, at another moment asking, "Have you ever been human?" At still another point, one of them speculates: "Maybe God is only hope…. Nobody gets what he wants."

Obviously, there is nothing new or in the least theologically profound about this as religious dialogue, though it is a bit surprising to find it in a Broadway theatre these days—and perhaps a mistake to have put it there. The situation is striking in itself, as well as the death that results and the way that happens. For Sr. Rita, by the end...