Reviews 2004
Reviews 2004
✭✭✭✭✩
by Rick Miller & Daniel Brooks, directed by Daniel Brooks
Necessary Angel, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
November 18-December 12, 2004
Rick Miller of MacHomer fame can do more than imitate the Simpsons. His new show Bigger Than Jesus, co-written with director Daniel Brooks, is his personal story. Miller, a lapsed Catholic, found that the liturgy of the Catholic mass still had resonance for him independent of Christianity. Miller applies John Lennon’s incendiary remark in 1966 that the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus” to Christianity itself and popular culture’s response to it, where 2000 years after his death the figure of Jesus is found in musicals and movies and merchandised ad nauseam.
Using the Catholic liturgy as a structure Miller and Brooks create what they call a non-denominational “multi-media mass for the modern age”. The show alternates between the simple beauty of the mass itself and Miller’s wildly funny interpolations where Miller exposes what is enduring about Jesus’s story purely as a story while simultaneously satirizing all forms of fundamentalism and the ways that story has been abused to justify everything from anti-Semitism to Bush’s modern crusades.
The funniest interlude, alone worth the price of admission, is Miller’s recreation of the Last Supper using plastic action figures where Jesus is joined by characters from Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz before breaking into an hilarious parody of Jesus Christ Superstar. Ben Chaisson’s imaginative electronic design using projections and live video enhances every aspect of the show. His recreation of the horrific sensation of a plane crashing, as will the show itself, will likely cause many to re-examine the status of their own beliefs.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-11-25.
Photo: Rick Miller. ©2004 Necessary Angel.
2004-11-25
Bigger Than Jesus