After surviving Y2K, I strutted into the year 2000 with aplomb, riding high after the success of Heads and Equator Woman. Harbour Theatre was now expecting things of me, which was fine because I was bursting with ideas!
My next product was a play within a play, a story about a struggling single mom whose daughter was acting in a community play. It was titled Jesus 2000. I had a lot of support, including from my friend, Rod McNish, who had a theatre degree, plenty of experience, and was a writer himself. Rod had reviewed a one-act play draft of mine a year earlier and I asked him to give this one a look.
Rod’s first thought on Jesus 2000 was that the play within a play didn’t work and that I needed to choose one or the other. I re-read it, to make sure I agreed with him, and then chose the play within because, well, it involved Jesus and Nazis, Martians and androids, Lucifer and God, and Be’el and a sexy, dominatrix Fuhrer.
I also came up with a gimmick, a pseudonym, listing the play’s author as Ravi McTavish. As the director (complete with smoking pipe and tweed jacket), each night I introduced Jesus 2000 as a long-lost masterpiece by little-known genius playwright, McTavish. I also warned patrons that the play was so profound, such a spiritual experience that they should hold hands with the people next to them if they feel themselves starting to levitate. Half of the audience seemed to buy it.
The promotion was done differently too as I put small letter-size teaser posters out a few weeks before the actual poster. They contained no graphics, just lines, like:
God and Lucifer together again. Just try not to cry.
Jesus is back – and this time she’s hot!
Of course, a play that has Jesus in it is going to cause a bit of a stir but, thankfully, it was minimal, with the most notable reaction being a letter to the Daily News from a former resident calling it “excrement of the mind” – without having read it, of course.
In those early days, UdderFest was a happening event and we had 2-3 venues. Jesus 2000 was mounted in the space that is now occupied by Northern Health in the Ocean Centre, the same venue that hosted Heads. We had a cast of 14 and some of them were playing two characters. There was also a stage manager/lights person and me on sound.
I tried to stay as close to the source material, the heart of the story, as I could. I had several people tell me they were moved by a scene where God hugs Jesus, hinting that she will die again. Of course, it was absurd and played mostly for laughs, with Judas being an android, Be’el, Lucifer’s servant, being a reanimated, dead drug addict, and the Martians being puppets with giant paper mache heads. Everyone loved the soundtrack (mostly 70s and 80s classics), so much that I gifted a tape of it to the cast and crew members.
We had a packed midnight show on the final night of UdderFest and it was remarkable, running much longer than normal due to almost non-stop laughter from the audience. I had never seen a show in which every single gag hit, so I was quite taken aback. I turned to Diana, my lights person, with a confused look that screamed, why are they laughing at EVERYTHING?? She smiled, surprised I couldn’t figure it out. “It’s midnight,” she whispered. “They’re all high.”
I felt like an idiot. Of course. They had all gone and had some drinks, smoked some pot, and were primed for the midnight show. It was gold for an absurd comedy. So prolonged was the audience’s laughter to virtually every gag, that the cast had to hold their lines for much longer than normal and it added at least a half-hour to the show.
My favorite moment was when one of the larger members of the cast had his pants button break off, so, he was forced to hold it up with one hand throughout a scene. He actually left the stage at one point to ask if anyone backstage had a safety pin; no one did so he returned, still holding his pants up. The other players on stage couldn’t help but laugh too, one turning away from the audience to face a wall and the other holding a clipboard in front of her face to hide her laughter.
Many of the those involved, including myself, say Jesus 2000 was the most fun production they have ever been in. We really bonded, including having a potluck and party at my place to get props done, and make swords and paper mache martian heads. It was even re-mounted, with a mostly different cast, for the Zone Festival.
Any doubts or fears of failure I had as a playwright were erased with Jesus 2000. As the years went by, some plays did better than others but all were well-received. I also, along with Lyle McNish and Rich Jerstad, created Let’s Parody Productions, a troupe that specialized in customized skits-for-hire for conventions, social club events, birthdays, or retirement parties.
But writing plays and skits were just one part of my theatre experience. I also acted in plays. And I developed a character, a washed up ham. The character was supposed to be a one-off for a Lounge Night show. Little did I know …
NEXT: The Legendary Chad Estrada!
(in photos: the show’s poster, and three of my favorite Christians in the famous dance scene)