When I Was Jesus: In Review

I rarely enjoy myself when I see live theatre. There’s the honest truth, folks. What can I say?
I get easily irritated by people’s minor acting flaws, and I often just have no idea what the heck is going on. Between bad writing, bad acting, the unpleasantness of post-post-modernism in general, and my own TV-generation attention span, I have to say…live theatre sucks.

That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised by last night’s performance of “When I Was Jesus,” produced by Moonchild Productions, and playing at Montreal’s Mainline Theatre until this Sunday. I was hooked from the beginning. When intermission came, I was struck with the same thrilling curiosity as a good old fashioned Season Finale cliffhanger. I can’t tell you how long it had been since I’d actually really wanted to go back in after intermission. Usually I re-enter theatres out of duty, obligation, and fear of seeming not intelligent enough to “get it.”

The show’s a well-crafted, and generally well-written examination of power struggles in our modern economy. At least, that’s how I took it. But that’s not what hooked me. What hooked me was:

1) The really well-structured plot: There’s a mystery at play here, and writer Patrick De Moss does an excellent job at maintaining suspense throughout the whole show.
2) Three really strong actors: Will Ward, Mathew Turner and Angela Potvin gave courageous and truly moving performances, each delicately and tenderly revealing the inner struggles of their characters. These three actors stood out from the ensemble, and the intricacy of the characters they created for themselves is largely what made the play so interesting.
3) A really interesting (and touching) look at mental illnesses and how they effect loved ones: this sub-theme was developed with a lot of emotional wisdom on both the parts of the actors and the playwright.

The second act could have used some editing - a bit heavy on the intensely dramatic monologues - and the interlacing of dialogues from different conversations was often distracting. The director could have pushed the delivery of the Eileen character past the actress’s regrettable comfort zone of “stiff office chic.” But on the whole, this production is a great achievement in independent, amateur theatre, and is worth a trip over to the mainline before the weekend is up.