What, I am in Vienna, with YJ's Songs, and I am blogging about Church? Well it's a rainy day, and I've been meaning to write this for a couple days now. If I wait any longer I might forget everything about the show, which was totally rockin'. Church was a joyful, insidious, delightful, WHITE and absurd celebration of the Christian faith. For YJ to set her play as a mock-church service, for me, was the perfect marriage between form / content. The strength of her uncompromisingly sharp and shockingly funny writing shined through the series of testimonies, sermons and prayers, interspersed with song and dance.
I didn't mind being berated, criticized and lectured at in this context, because the frame of the church protected me from YJ's rampage against the inanity and complacency of urban-liberal culture. Instead I could enjoy the magnificent performances. And though some texts were uneven (the mummy monologue - fucking brilliant almost peed my pants -- could have done without the dream text) the whole event was exhilarating. For someone like me, for whom religion only inspires contempt, revulsion and horror, this play was an incredibly opening experience, a liberating embrace of the beauty, foolishness, and passion (and the human desire for) of community through faith. Religion as interpreted by the staunchest atheist and most committed believer.
No comments:
Post a Comment