Occasionally you read those sad stories about people who get lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood, make a wrong turn, and get the crap beat out of them -- or worse -- by the the locals.

Early this evening on the Lower East Side, it happened to me.

Now, you've got to understand, I'm not a tremendously well-organized person to begin with. Add to this the fact that I am one guy facing down 200+ shows in 17 days, and what you end up with at any given time on any given day is a scrawled list of about a dozen possibilities, from which I usually end up seeing 3 or 4.

Which 3 or 4 is often the result of split-second decisions and lightning-quick reflexes due to unforeseen and uncontrollable forces, such as acts of God and the MTA: that thunderstorm just trashed my third umbrella in five days -- which theater can I get to quickest in a downpour? The #1 train has been stopped dead between 23rd & 18th Streets to the occasional barrage of unintelligible advisory updates for a long time now -- never make that first show; what else is on the list?

Today was no different. The usual combination of the unavoidable and the improvised put me on the Lower East Side late in the afternoon. I looked at my list to see what was close and starting soon and saw that next to "Discordant Duets" at the nearby Teatro La Tea I had written, "FringeHIGH".

FringeHIGH-tagged shows in the Fest are ones somebody has deemed acceptable for high school students. FringeHIGH. FringeU. FringeALFRESCO. I'm trying to hit everything at least once. "Duets" could be deemed acceptable for high school. It might even be deemed informative and instructive, if the kids watching had been kept in cages their whole lives or had recently awakened from comas.

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For most of "Duets" earnestly turgid first act, I thought I was merely watching a clumsy secular exercise in drama therapy in which (heterosexual only, please!) "relationship issues" would be laid blatantly bare and discussed later in some post-show pow-wow I would quickly slip away from.

And then...it happened.

Near the close of the first act, as a counselor advises a young woman troubled by her boyfriend's drinking, "Duets" lurking true agenda is exposed:

"Did you ever consider accepting Jesus Christ as your savior?"

A cold chill gripped me. Suddenly, it all came rushing at me: the early warning signs that had been there from the start but somehow I just didn't want to see -- the over-friendly staff, the abundance of eye contact, the fact that they all looked like folks you'd see at a Hardee's off the Interstate near Des Moines-- all apple-cheeked and about 70 pounds overweight.

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At intermission I sought sanctuary in the Teatro's unique men's room, where the toilet stalls are duct-taped off, the sink is a converted piss trough and the room next door has "Slop Sink" stenciled on it.

With enough light now to actually read the program, I could see, right there on the cover page, their "Mission Statement" -- how they are committed to using "modern stories and cutting-edge scripts" to help people find "their place in God's plan."

"Cutting-edge" is certainly as relative a term as it is over-used, and as a Christian tract, "Discordant Duets" is more New Age soft-sell than old-time fire and brimstone browbeating. And some of the music isn't bad, although if the opening crunchy garage-rock riffs that gradually give way to some Judy Collins knock-off warbling "...he's always been faithful to me.." is the playlist you get by being "saved", I'm on the express train to Hell. Even the inevitable sales pitch wasn't that hard-sell: actors at the curtain call announcing there was "literature available" downstairs.

Downstairs was exactly where I was heading, fleeing down the Teatro's suicide staircase even as the curtain speechmaking continued behind me: "...we don't want to make this like a church meeting or anything..." and powering past one of Christ's soldiers who had already taken up position on the landing, available literature in hand.

They all have that same look -- that half-frozen, beatific smile-grimace, the one that might be saying, "I see Jesus just over your shoulder" as well as "I just shat my knickers and can't leave my post." You can't tell. It's that kind of Arthur Bremer "I'm high on God" look, and it scares the shit out of me.

As does the simpleminded platitude of "Duets" "God's plan" take-away message. When the young woman with the drunken boyfriend expresses doubts over accepting a "plan" she cannot know the outcome or even direction of, her soothing Christian counselor suggests she look at her life as though she were acting in a Woody Allen film:

"Woody Allen only gives his actors a page of his script at a time. They don't know where their characters are going, but they trust that Woody has a plan. God has a plan, too."

And for this young woman, God's plan works out. Her boyfriend quits drinking and picking up chicks in bars. He starts wearing Dockers and pastel shirts. They get married. They have babies and find happiness. They exit stage left, pushing their pram and cooing over their adorable child. They have accepted God's plan, a page at a time.

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The question I would have for this blissfully serene little bunch is, is it the same God that writes the script for everyone? Is it the same God that's handing out pages to George W. Bush, the pages that spoke to Bush directly, the pages that told him to wage war on a sovereign nation that posed no immediate threat to the United States, the pages that told him to lie, to fabricate, to mislead and deceive, the pages that told him to slaughter untold thousands of civilians, the pages that flutter down each day filled with new names of dead American soldiers? Is this your same God? Is this all part of the "plan"? It's "God's plan" for George W. Bush. He gets pages direct from on high every day. We know because he told us so.

But what about all those who have died and will continue to die because of this God and "his plan"? What about all those whose "daily pages" don't include pushing the baby stroller dreamily off into some eternal middle-class marital bliss, but rather CUT TO: being blown apart in some faraway desert shithole? What about them? Is there some other "plan" for them? Is there an "A" list and a "B" list plan? A high-budget happy endings script plan for some and a low-budget slasher flick plan for others?

Does this "plan" include a rewrite if we don't like the pages we're given?

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