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May. 10th, 2014 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI just got back from one of the more incredible theater experiences I've had in New York, and I'm trying to figure out how to talk about it.
The Mysteries is a six-hour retelling of the Bible (Old and New Testament), as interpreted by 48 playwrights and one director. Disparate pieces of the story that get sutured together, with mood, characterization and interpretation changing wildly from scene to scene -- it really shouldn't work, but somehow it SUPER DOES. Some of the scenes are gorgeous, some are hilarious, some think they're funnier and smarter than they are, and some of them, in my opinion, are wild missteps (although I suspect everyone's opinion on that will be different), but everything that didn't work for me ended up balanced by a moment of incredible grace. For example, Douchebag Noah's unsubtle global warming parallels left me pretty cold, until we got to the flood -- gorgeous, awful choreography, people breathing into loved one's mouths and holding them up for a last breath of air -- and OK, FINE, YOU GOT ME. Likewise, Hillbilly Soap Opera Sacrifice of Isaac, which I am noooot sure was the best call, was followed immediately by an angel defying God's will by refusing to allow Isaac's sacrifice. (After the angel stays Abraham's hand, and Lucifer welcomes her new buddy to the rebellious side, Gabriel shows up belatedly to announce, "God's claiming this one.")
It helps that the show's direction is strong, consistent, and, I suspect, totally willing to allow the staging to play merry havoc with the text. My favorite example of this is during a playlet in which Jesus is (fairly inexplicably) hitting on Gabriel in the garden of Gethsemane. As Jesus and Gabriel start making out, Judas wanders onstage, pushes Gabriel aside, and attaches his lips to Jesus instead. THE DIRECTOR HAS A VISION.
(I was expecting Judas and Jesus to make out a lot, and I was not disappointed. I have to admit however I was not expecting the wildly homoerotic scene with John the Baptist.)
The venue is very small and intimate, and consists of rows of benches surrounded by red-spattered curtains. The cast, meanwhile, is HUGE, and a significant percentage of the audience members seemed to be there because they knew someone in the cast. (As a girl next to us explained to Bartholemew the Apostle during intermission, she was a friend of God's.)
No matter where you're sitting in the theater there's usually a choir of angels directly behind you, occasionally waving apples in your face or passing around Last Supper bread. As a Jew I was not entirely sure I should be eating Last Supper bread, but, I mean, the challah looked good, so I ate it anyway. At another memorable moment, the angels are replaced by staggering bandage-wrapped zombies.
There is a LOT of nudity, but it doesn't feel like shock value. Adam and Eve spend most of their scenes unself-consciously naked -- well, of course they do. ...OK, there is the scene where Lazarus comes back from the dead and one unfortunate disciple keeps turning around at just the wrong time to get confronted by Lazarus' Undead Junk, and perhaps that is gratuitous but it's also HILARIOUS, so, I mean, NO COMPLAINTS.
Other memorable moments: ANYTHING WITH LUCIFER. Oh my god, I'm not sure I have words to explain the attractiveness of Lucifer; she lit up the stage every time she appeared. Then, after the first intermission, she came and took our dinner plates in a chatty and cheerful fashion while we started at her in starstruck awe. (There is dinner at Intermission I, served to you in your chairs, by the cast. You can also get up if you like and take a picture with Joseph, Mary and the donkey at the Bethlehem Photo Booth. Intermission II has dessert, sans photo ops.)
Also AMAZING: anything to do with Gabriel. God's last appearance for most of the show is when he tells a terrified Gabriel to "do what you think I would do" and wanders off; almost everything Gabriel does subsequently is increasingly awful, although nothing quite as awful as the Annunciation delivered to a very unwilling Mary. (...so, you know, trigger warning on that one.)
God is also pretty brilliant, when he's around, which is not often. I mean really everyone is very good. I feel like I probably would have gotten more out of the disciple-related segments if I knew more about the disciples, but I didn't need to know much about the disciples to appreciate Thomas's input into a heated argument about what the disciples should be preaching: "I once doubted, but now I BELIEVE, so I think we should tell everyone that JESUS RODE UNICORNS!" You stick to your unicorn guns, Doubting Thomas.
But, like, what I really want to convey is that there are the unicorns and the zombies, and the scene that's Joseph and Mary on "The Bachelor" and the part where the entire cast starts singing "I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier," but for every moment that's immensely cynical there's a moment that's just as numinous -- and some of them are both cynical and numinous, but there are even some moments that are not cynical at all.
If you're in New York, and you have the opportunity to see it, I recommend it -- I mean, at the very least, I can guarantee you'll never again have a theater experience quite like it.
The Mysteries is a six-hour retelling of the Bible (Old and New Testament), as interpreted by 48 playwrights and one director. Disparate pieces of the story that get sutured together, with mood, characterization and interpretation changing wildly from scene to scene -- it really shouldn't work, but somehow it SUPER DOES. Some of the scenes are gorgeous, some are hilarious, some think they're funnier and smarter than they are, and some of them, in my opinion, are wild missteps (although I suspect everyone's opinion on that will be different), but everything that didn't work for me ended up balanced by a moment of incredible grace. For example, Douchebag Noah's unsubtle global warming parallels left me pretty cold, until we got to the flood -- gorgeous, awful choreography, people breathing into loved one's mouths and holding them up for a last breath of air -- and OK, FINE, YOU GOT ME. Likewise, Hillbilly Soap Opera Sacrifice of Isaac, which I am noooot sure was the best call, was followed immediately by an angel defying God's will by refusing to allow Isaac's sacrifice. (After the angel stays Abraham's hand, and Lucifer welcomes her new buddy to the rebellious side, Gabriel shows up belatedly to announce, "God's claiming this one.")
It helps that the show's direction is strong, consistent, and, I suspect, totally willing to allow the staging to play merry havoc with the text. My favorite example of this is during a playlet in which Jesus is (fairly inexplicably) hitting on Gabriel in the garden of Gethsemane. As Jesus and Gabriel start making out, Judas wanders onstage, pushes Gabriel aside, and attaches his lips to Jesus instead. THE DIRECTOR HAS A VISION.
(I was expecting Judas and Jesus to make out a lot, and I was not disappointed. I have to admit however I was not expecting the wildly homoerotic scene with John the Baptist.)
The venue is very small and intimate, and consists of rows of benches surrounded by red-spattered curtains. The cast, meanwhile, is HUGE, and a significant percentage of the audience members seemed to be there because they knew someone in the cast. (As a girl next to us explained to Bartholemew the Apostle during intermission, she was a friend of God's.)
No matter where you're sitting in the theater there's usually a choir of angels directly behind you, occasionally waving apples in your face or passing around Last Supper bread. As a Jew I was not entirely sure I should be eating Last Supper bread, but, I mean, the challah looked good, so I ate it anyway. At another memorable moment, the angels are replaced by staggering bandage-wrapped zombies.
There is a LOT of nudity, but it doesn't feel like shock value. Adam and Eve spend most of their scenes unself-consciously naked -- well, of course they do. ...OK, there is the scene where Lazarus comes back from the dead and one unfortunate disciple keeps turning around at just the wrong time to get confronted by Lazarus' Undead Junk, and perhaps that is gratuitous but it's also HILARIOUS, so, I mean, NO COMPLAINTS.
Other memorable moments: ANYTHING WITH LUCIFER. Oh my god, I'm not sure I have words to explain the attractiveness of Lucifer; she lit up the stage every time she appeared. Then, after the first intermission, she came and took our dinner plates in a chatty and cheerful fashion while we started at her in starstruck awe. (There is dinner at Intermission I, served to you in your chairs, by the cast. You can also get up if you like and take a picture with Joseph, Mary and the donkey at the Bethlehem Photo Booth. Intermission II has dessert, sans photo ops.)
Also AMAZING: anything to do with Gabriel. God's last appearance for most of the show is when he tells a terrified Gabriel to "do what you think I would do" and wanders off; almost everything Gabriel does subsequently is increasingly awful, although nothing quite as awful as the Annunciation delivered to a very unwilling Mary. (...so, you know, trigger warning on that one.)
God is also pretty brilliant, when he's around, which is not often. I mean really everyone is very good. I feel like I probably would have gotten more out of the disciple-related segments if I knew more about the disciples, but I didn't need to know much about the disciples to appreciate Thomas's input into a heated argument about what the disciples should be preaching: "I once doubted, but now I BELIEVE, so I think we should tell everyone that JESUS RODE UNICORNS!" You stick to your unicorn guns, Doubting Thomas.
But, like, what I really want to convey is that there are the unicorns and the zombies, and the scene that's Joseph and Mary on "The Bachelor" and the part where the entire cast starts singing "I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier," but for every moment that's immensely cynical there's a moment that's just as numinous -- and some of them are both cynical and numinous, but there are even some moments that are not cynical at all.
If you're in New York, and you have the opportunity to see it, I recommend it -- I mean, at the very least, I can guarantee you'll never again have a theater experience quite like it.
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Date: 2014-05-10 06:45 am (UTC)Envious :D
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Date: 2014-05-10 06:52 am (UTC)(and another warning for folks who might be religious to the point where casting aspersions on paul's character is offensive)
did they do paul??? was he as much of a dirtbag as his epistles???
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Date: 2014-05-10 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-10 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-10 12:19 pm (UTC)Becca, those Mysteries sound amazing, and totally in the spirit of the medieval mystery sequences. Did you ever read the one about Noah and his whiny wife? Or the one where Salome tests Mary's virginity onstage and then her hand turns black from the impiety of touching Mary's vulva, which is certainly the most lesbian bit of theater ever to exist between the days of Sappho and the days of Aphra Behn?
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Date: 2014-05-10 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2014-05-10 12:26 pm (UTC)Interestingly, Host-eating branches of Christianity have historically been clear that it's a bad thing for Jews to eat the Host. There are medieval legends about Jewish boys going to Mass with their Christian friends and taking Communion... and then screaming! that there's a tiny baby Jesus crying in their mouths! These stories generally end with the young boys converting and their disbelieving or angry family members dying horribly.
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Date: 2014-05-10 03:59 pm (UTC)(Or, sign me up and then bring it to Toronto so I can actually see it. *sob*)
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Date: 2014-05-10 11:33 pm (UTC)This sounds incredible, I MISS BIG CITIES SO MUCH.
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Date: 2014-05-11 01:31 am (UTC)I had no idea.
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Date: 2014-05-11 01:38 am (UTC)You know, accidentally eating a tiny crying anything is not really something I view as an encouragement to conversion.
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Date: 2014-05-11 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-11 06:16 am (UTC)...I'm not sure what to say other than fascinating. But that FOR SURE.
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