Barry Smith’s Jesus in Montana
The show was one of the highlights of the Calgary Fringe Festival that wrapped up its second year this week. Bucking the notion that there’s something pretentious about theatre, the fringe is open and accessible, full of shows that get down to the basics: storytelling, humour and gay love. There was even a little drug abuse. But we’ll get to that.
Jesus in Montana explores the ideas of faith and organized religion, as Smith tries to explain what led him to join a cult. What it boils down to is a series of coincidences — as a young man, he wanted reassurances in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, and an 80-year-old chiropractor in Montana happened to fulfil several biblical prophecies predicting the return of the saviour.
Smith, a Colorado-based humourist, peppers the story with gags but succeeds in balancing the jokes with the sincerity of someone who is telling a group of strangers about a rather embarrassing period of time in his life. Ultimately, the reason Jesus in Montana works is that it’s a damn good story. If someone at the bar told you that they once hitchhiked for two days to join the cult of a geriatric child molester, you’d probably listen. The story only gets better when the person telling it is a great raconteur who can also prove that Paul McCartney died in the late ’60s and was replaced by a double.
The show’s one fault is that Smith leaves you wanting to know more about his life in the cult. The buildup to his meeting Jesus takes up more of the play than his actual time with the guy. But the fact that you’re looking for more material is proof that Smith has hooked you with his story, his humour and, yes, his hilarious PowerPoint presentation.
Keeping it light, Vancouver’s Monster Theatre returned to the fringe with Napoleon’s Secret Diary, a one-man show that re-imagines the French emperor as a guy who never really wanted to dominate Europe. In fact, all he wants to do is go live quietly on an island somewhere.
Using pieces of fruit to explain the French revolution and cowering in the corner while his army wins battles, Ryan Gladstone’s Napoleon is the cowardly, cute counterpart of the ambitious, charismatic general of the history books. He uses this alternative take on Napoleon to explain several historical events and throws in some closet homosexuality to boot. The show isn’t brilliant, but it’s a good comedy with parallels to another world leader who often seems a total victim of circumstance.
Private i, performed by Jolene Baillie and created by Calgary’s Denise Clarke, employs a different method of storytelling, using dance interspersed with short monologues. Baillie’s character is vague enough to represent an everywoman, and while she is selfish, she probably reflects North American culture in general when she tells us how unhappy she is to read about foreign wars right after she shows off her $200 shoes. Baillie starts by dancing slowly to indie rock on her iPod, and the dancing gets looser and wilder through the show, with Baillie returning to her calm persona after each outburst.
Also on the local front, Ground Zero fuses a cold, Canadian sensibility with Trainspotting to create Urban Reality, a show about drugs, prostitution and abuse. While the characters — a drug addict and a pimp — spend parts of the scene joking around, there is little mercy in this show. Whereas some plays and movies about drug addiction work by adding a surreal element to their gritty core, Urban Reality tells this story with an icy naturalism as much Ibsen as Irvine Welsh.
And just to prove that God’s not dead, Calgary’s Obscene But Not Heard returned to the fringe with their hilarious sketch comedy show Jihad Me at Hello, an irreverent look at religion that includes a 16-hour Leonard Cohen performance in hell.
Naturally, the festival had its share of duds (including at least one play, America:Acirema, that was almost as bad as sticking pins in your eyes for an hour), but that’s just part of having a festival as open as the fringe. In just two years, Calgary’s festival has proven that it can attract an audience and leave them wanting more. Let’s hope next year is even better.
