It's not a new play - you've probably heard of it. Ten years ago, it was all over the papers - because it was being protested and picketed by conservative Christian groups. It's Terrence McNally's "Corpus Christi," and this play's Jesus is gay (and from Texas). So, in the original production, were all his disciples, which got some prurient minds racing so fast the theater received death threats. The play was overshadowed by this controversy; word on the street was that it was something between lampoon and agitprop. Nothing of the sort! This is the good news with a friendly amendment, updated, amplified but (and!) true.This production began in an MCC church in Los Angeles two years ago, and has traveled all over - the actors donating their time and talent. The cast is mixed - women as well as men, and of many different ages - which might seem to dilute McNally's idea a little, but really just replaces one kind of saving queerness with a deeper one. The actors almost all play across gender roles at one point or another, and the plot hasn't changed: Jesus still has a lover (I won't say who), and is arrested for having performed a gay marriage. But this is also the Jesus who preaches the good news, who multiplies loaves and fishes, heals the sick, expels demons and raises the dead - these miracles are performed on stage without any irony. (In 1998, a gay marriage might have seemed as much a miracle as curing a leper; how far we've come!) If there's a bit of the Gnostic gospels thrown into this Jesus' message, it doesn't affect the central story of love and sacrifice, which is as powerful here as it was in "Son of Man," that South African passion film I reviewed earlier this year, or in "Jesus of Montreal." Is it a great piece of theater? Perhaps not great, but it's moving, smart, and funny and serious at all the right moments, ending in sorrow and wonder. It's really a passion play, not just a play about the supposedly miraculous powers of the theater.
This New York visit, the culmination of 108 Production's work with "Corpus Christi," is timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the play's premiere in October 1998, and another ten year anniversary, too. Matthew Shepard was found tied to that fence in Wyoming the day "Corpus Christi" opened, arms spread wide.
Whatever you do for the least of my brothers...
UPDATE: Went again on the 22nd, with some friends. One, a friend from church, said afterwards: "That story hasn't moved me in decades."
