GAY PEOPle's ChronICLE NOVEMBER 6, 1998

EVENINGS OUT

Strong acting helps gay Jesus through muddled play

Corpus Christi

by Terrence McNally Manhattan Theatre Club

Reviewed by Bob Findle

The protesters were almost speaking in tongues while picketing on the sidewalk outside the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York. There they were waving divine-inspired signs like "God sees you" and "Don't mock our God" (and here, all along, I had thought He was my God, too).

As I handed my ticket to the doorman, I felt extra wicked because I was seeing Corpus Christi on a Sunday. I guess there will be one less jewel for me in my crown when I arrive in heaven.

For all the uproar out in the street, awardwinning Terrence McNally's (Master Class; Love, Valour, Compassion; The Lisbon Traviata; and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune) new play about the Son of God is for the most part-if you don't consider the gay take on it-only a retelling of the New Testament.

As one actor says at the beginning, the story has been told before in other ways. This is just another of those ways-with 13 men playing multiple roles on an open stage with a few props. Several also play instru-

ments and all sing beautifully.

Set in Corpus Christi, Texas, Joshua (this play's Jesus) is born in a motel to a virgin named Mary and a good ol' boy named Joseph. The three kings come in the form of room service, and baby Joshua grows up to attend Pontius Pilate High School.

God the Father made his Son flesh, so says the Bible, so McNally has his savior confused about life as any other teenager of flesh would be. Joshua realizes early on that he is different from other boys and is troubled that he doesn't fit in. Not only does he have some unclear destiny-as foretold by room service he also is attracted to men. He is harassed by a teacher and fellow students alike. At his prom, Joshua is named the "student most likely to take it up the Hershey Highway." After graduation, Joshua leaves town to find and fulfill his destiny.

Up to this point the play exists on its own inventive merit, the updating of the wellknown story coming through as fresh, yet still reverent in its own way. The to-behealed leper/blind man is a truck driver who gives hitchhiking Joshua a ride; in the desert Satan takes the form of James Dean as he tempts Joshua to abandon his task to save mankind.

One sits eagerly awaiting to see what the new interpretations will be. The apostles

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While his followers sleep after their last supper together, Joshua (Anson Mount) prays to God.

later get down in a disco, like all good gay boys do. When Joshua's travels brings him to Jerusalem, it is the ancient city. This timebending transition doesn't quite play, and perhaps McNally should have left things in the not-so-distant-past U.S. The Romans are not needed as crucifying thugs; gay bashing government officials and hatemongering groups abounded in America then as now.

Joshua's crime? He performs a same-sex marriage between two apostles, a heartpleasing scene for the audience. He is condemned by the church, dragged before Pilate, who asks not if he is the son of God, but if he is a queer.

A by-the-numbers crucifixion scene follows, its drama lost to the drag makeup applied to Joshua. It makes him look a bit too Godspell as presented by a subdued Marilyn Manson.

Before you know it, the show's over, and

a player says there was no intent to offend. The protesters out on the street would say that it did. But did it really? No.

Although muddled in parts, caught between semi-camp (the first half) and mixedresult drama (the second), the show is bolstered by the strong performances of the cast and clever, fluid staging.

One leaves wishing for an edgier show but intrigued with the play's simple insistence, regardless of the selective application by today's religious leaders, that true the message of Christ really is about loving one another and not judging others. Simple, but not often heard.

Planning a trip to New York? Corpus Christi runs through Nov. 29. Phone 212642-5929 for tickets and information.

Bob Findle is editor of the Gay & Lesbian Times, a San Diego weekly newspaper.

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