Quick Hit Theater Review: Mother of God!

Mother of God!
New Perspective Theatre Company
Richard Shepard Theatre
309 East 26th St., NYC
Writer: Michele A. Miller
Director: Melody Brooks

Summary:
A sort-of vaudeville, three-stooges perspective on what might have been the "real" story behind the Nativity. Miriam (Keona Welch), you'll know her by the name Mary, is betrothed to the much older, righteous-obsessed Joseph (Charles E. Gerber) when she is filled with excitement and fire by a stranger wearing a mask and claiming that he has been sent from heaven. Whether he is Apollo or a Roman soldier masquerading as God isn't clear, but either way, Miriam is sure that the child she has conceived is divine because in her mind, she's never been touched by man. Her guilt-trip-laying mother Hannah (Marisa Petsakos) is less thrilled than the pious Joseph, but Miriam's cousin Elizabeth (Karin de la Penta) cooks up a plan to make people think the child might be the Messiah. Meanwhile, Caspar (Keith Walker), Balthasar (Erwin Falcon) and Melchior (Ray Rodriguez), three bumbling travelers, follow a star in the east.

Highlights:
• The cast tries hard and Welch has a lovely presence on stage
• I liked Walker's British wise man
• Falcon's Ninja-like stance when he argues with Melchior is funny
• Rodriguez' trip over the set and fall in front of Mary as she was giving birth was pretty funny (although I'm not certain it was scripted.)

TheLowlights:
• It's not funny. I love a good parody, even about religious topics, but this is more than two hours of jokes falling flat.
• Drum rolls, whistles and other kooky sound effects after every joke, although sometimes they are helpful, because you wouldn't have known the line was supposed to be funny otherwise.
• Cardboard scenery that says "traveling show to schools" rather than "farce."

Tickets $18 ($15 students and seniors) available at http://www.theatermania.com/ or by phone at 866-811-4111.

Christians might also like to know:
• Not the Nativity story as you know it....(but it isn't supposed to be, so don't be offended)
• Mary says that Jupiter, Apollo and the Hebrew God are all one in the same.
• Language
• The Lord's name is used in the phrase, "Oh, my god!" when Hannah is exclaiming about Mary's pregnancy, but it could be interpreted that she's truly crying ot to him.