Jen Tullock Photo by Maria Baranova

Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God, Jen Tullock's solo show that she wrote with Frank Winters, is terribly busy. Perhaps partly autobiographical–details are hazy–it recounts the odyssey of Frances, a thirtysomething essayist whose second book is just coming out, triggering a talk show promo, thus that table-and-chair set (it hasn't much to do with anything else). Frances, raised in an evangelical Kentucky environment and unapologetically gay, bears many scars from her journey, psychological and physical. Her story unfolds in 33 "chapters," loosely related vignettes, and that's a lot of transitions for a 70-minute show.

Tullock, of course, plays all the parts, and she's a virtuoso; those who know her only from TV's Severance or Perry Mason will be goggle-eyed at her physical and vocal dexterity. Mostly she's Frances, tart-tongued and assertive, that assertiveness masking a mountain of insecurities. Her story, essentially, and the topic of her new book: As a child, her deeply religious parents tried to literally beat the gay out of her, then hired an exorcist to pray it away. They failed, and as a young woman, she traveled to Poland on a Christian mission, where she fell in love with Agnieszka, who may or may not have reciprocated the love–the subjectivity of memory is a major component here–and now, for reasons unexplained, lives in Louisville, Frances's hometown, where she works for the church and is raising Grzegorz, an asthmatic 10-year-old boy who's into Capezio jazz shoes and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Got that? There's so much more. Frances, on tour to promote her book, is stopping in Louisville, where she hopes to reconnect with Agnieszka. Meanwhile, Aubrey, her chirpy agent, is cheerfully warning in texts and voicemails that some local Christian organization has gotten hold of an advance copy and is threatening to make trouble. Also in Louisville: Eli, her brother, sympathetic to her, but still very Christian; Raelynn, their mother, professing love and misremembering or denying her abusive past; Pastor Young, with a friendly demeanor, but spearheading the assault on her book; Kenny, an Irish expat assisting him; Clay, an affable high school buddy of Frances's who had a crush on her, then realized he was gay; and, oh, one or two others, it's hard to keep track.

And that's the main flaw with Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God. The transitions are so abrupt, the material so fragmented, we're left breathless scrambling to keep pace. Stefania Bulbarella's projection and video design displays multitudes of Jen Tullocks, as many as 30 of her, from different angles, sometimes clear and sometimes blurred, sometimes live and sometimes in freeze-frame; it's a visual feast, and it privileges us to focus on the precision of Tullock's emotions, but whether it enhances the storytelling is open to debate.

Then there's all the overlapping. Scenes of Frances being interviewed–first by a nameless host, then on a higher-profile CNN gig–are interspersed with other scenes, switching relentlessly back and forth. Recorded audience questions–"I just wonder, as a cis-white woman, all due respect, who is this narrative for?"–interrupt other scenes, sometimes containing a common word, sometimes not, but otherwise there's no link. Past and present are confusingly scattered. Conversations drop off mid-thought. The nameless TV host reads book excerpts that have little to do with the ongoing action. And while Tullock excels at differentiating her characters, there are frequent moments of, "Who is she now?"

She moves well, whether inhabiting Grzegorz's talent show audition dancing to "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" or Frances's re-creation of a dance she did 25 years ago at a Christian summer camp with Clay. Her Polish, Irish, and Southern accents are varied and assured. And as the story clears up a bit–that late-arriving CNN interview helped me piece some of the disparate parts together–we grow both to care about Frances and to question how accurately she, and everyone else, remembers things.

Jared Mezzocchi's direction accentuates the randomness of it all, though, diverting focus here, there, seemingly wanting to keep us disoriented. The fairly elaborate lighting by Amith Chandrashaker casts those plentiful video images of Tullock in different shades and complements the constantly shifting mood. Evdoxia Ragkou's hardworking sound design takes in TV vs. live timbre, offstage hymns, and the sirens and gales of a Louisville tornado. A lot happens in a little over an hour!

Tullock and Winters had a worthy story to tell, one of religious hypocrisy and ambivalence, thwarted love, and, as the press release has it, "the line between reality and the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive." Why did they have to trick it up with so much jumbled storytelling, so much needless technical gadgetry, so many characters that show off Tullock's versatility but don't, in the end, shape the narrative a great deal? I left Nothing Can Take You from the Hand of God impressed with Tullock's energy and vigor, and baffled about exactly what the hell happened.