Synopsis
The audience meets each character at the very beginning of the play after each is baptized by the character John. After each baptism, the actor speaks directly to the audience to give a description of their character. In this scene, Joshua is told by John he is the Son of God, and then Joshua baptizes John. The next scene is a description of Mary birthing Joshua in a motel which begins and ends with the actors singing lyrics of modern-day Christmas songs. The play cuts rapidly between conversations amongst the characters at the motel where God eventually speaks to Joshua to direct him and tell him what will happen in his life.
Next, the characters move quickly through different settings of high school, focusing on prom where Joshua wins the superlative “Most Likely to Take it Up the Hershey Highway.” [2] Then, Joshua and Judas kiss in the boys’ bathroom and later make out on the beach. The next day Joshua begins to wander and travel. He hitches a ride with a blind truck driver and Joshua heals him of leprosy and heals his eyes so that he can see. The truck driver kicks Joshua out so that he can help the world with his powers.
The next scene first takes place with Joshua in the desert, representing the Bible story of Jesus’ 40 days and nights spent in the desert. Then, Joshua finds his way into the city where he performs the many miracles that Jesus is capable of. After these miracles, all twelve actors stand together to represent the twelve disciples. Joshua goes on to marry James and Bartholomew to each other because no one else would. McNally emphasizes here that Joshua chose to focus on the love aspect of scripture rather than the judgement aspect.
They all return to Corpus Christi to act out the Last Supper and then Joshua's crucifixion. Judas betrays Joshua and turns him in to Pontius Pilate. The disciples then act as the city's people and vote to save the life of Barabbas the thief and have Joshua crucified for being gay. For the crucifixion, Thaddeus nails the first nail, Matthew nails the second and third nails that pin Joshua to the cross. From the crowd, some disciples mock Joshua and accuse him of not being the Son of God because he is being murdered for being gay. This scene is gruesome to emphasize the pain that hate causes.
Similar to the beginning, the play ends with the actors addressing the audience to provide an explanation. They state that Joshua, in reference to Jesus, loved everyone despite their potential sins.
Productions
The planned production of the play in New York City was canceled and then reinstated. [8] Because of protests, the producer of the play, the Manhattan Theatre Club, withdrew the play in May 1998, worried about possible violence. They then quickly reinstated it, stating that they did not believe in censorship but also noting that security precautions would be taken. The play opened Off-Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production at New York City Center Stage 1 on October 13, 1998, directed by Joe Mantello, [9] and closed on November 29, 1998. The original production featured the following cast: [2]
Corpus Christi received its British premiere in 2000, produced by Theatre 28 and directed by Stephen Henry. When it was produced as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Anglican bishop Robert Forsyth considered the play to be offensive and historically incorrect. [10]
A 2004 production at University of St. Andrews in Scotland, staged while Prince William, The Duke of Cambridge was still a student there, received much attention and was protested daily by radical conservative group Christian Voice, who lodged complaints with local police to prevent performances from going ahead on claims of blasphemy. [11] This same production later traveled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The play was revived by the Off-Off-Broadway Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, running in October 2008. Jason Zinoman, reviewing for The New York Times , wrote that the premiere production was "an earnest and reverent spin on the Jesus story, with some soft-spoken, gay-friendly politics thrown in." He further noted that the play was "fragile, heartfelt" and "seems more personal than political, a coming-of-age story wrapped in religious sentiment." [12] The New York Times also published an article linking the uproar in 1998 to the death of gay student Matthew Shepard. [8]
In March 2010, a student performance of the play was cancelled at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. The university had received many complaints about the play's scheduled performance, but its president, F. Dominic Dottavio, citing freedom of speech, declared that the play would be performed. [13] Dottavio's condemnation of the play in the same letter, though, has been criticized by campus free speech groups as giving encouragement to people trying to shut down the production. [14] After Texas's Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst weighed in saying, "No one should have the right to use government funds or institutions to portray acts that are morally reprehensible to the vast majority of Americans," the performance was cancelled citing safety concerns. [15] [16]
The planned staging of the play in Athens, Greece, in October 2012 led to violent protests by party members and clergymen, with journalists and audience members being banned in the theater, and the premiere was cancelled. [17] [18] An Off West End production took place at the Arcola Theatre in London UK, March 2018 as part of the Creative Disruption Festival.
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Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was the recipient of five Tony Awards. He won the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class and the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime, and received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996, and he also received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. His other accolades included an Emmy Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, four Drama Desk Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, two Obie Awards, and three Hull-Warriner Awards.
The Greatest Story Ever Told is a 1965 American epic religious film about the retelling of the Biblical account about Jesus of Nazareth, from the Nativity through to the Ascension. Produced and directed by George Stevens, with an ensemble cast, it features the final film performances of Claude Rains and Joseph Schildkraut.
Teddie Joe "Ted" Neeley is an American singer, actor, musician, composer, and record producer. He is known for portraying the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), a role for which he was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and has reprised numerous times.
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Joshua Lucas Easy Dent Maurer is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in various films, including American Psycho (2000), You Can Count on Me (2000), The Deep End (2001), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Wonderland (2003), Hulk (2003), Secondhand Lions (2003), An Unfinished Life (2005), Glory Road (2006), Poseidon (2006), Life as We Know It (2010), The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), Red Dog (2011), J. Edgar (2011), The Mend (2014), Breakthrough (2019), Ford v Ferrari (2019), The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) and The Forever Purge (2021). He has also appeared in television series such as The Firm (2012), The Mysteries of Laura (2014–2016), and Yellowstone (2018–2022).
Love! Valour! Compassion! is a play by Terrence McNally. The play opened Off-Broadway in 1994 and transferred to Broadway in 1995. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.
Corpus Christi may refer to:
The York Mystery Plays, more properly the York Corpus Christi Plays, are a Middle English cycle of 48 mystery plays or pageants covering sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgment. They were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi and were performed in the city of York, from the mid-fourteenth century until their suppression in 1569. The plays are one of four virtually complete surviving English mystery play cycles, along with the Chester Mystery Plays, the Towneley/Wakefield plays and the N-Town plays. Two long, composite, and late mystery pageants have survived from the Coventry cycle and there are records and fragments from other similar productions that took place elsewhere. A manuscript of the plays, probably dating from between 1463 and 1477, is still intact and stored at the British Library.
The Lisbon Traviata is a 1989 American play by Terrence McNally premiered Off-Broadway. It revolves around several opera fans, especially of the opera singer Maria Callas, and their gay relationships.
Some Men is a play by Terrence McNally that consists of an interwoven series of stories which chronicle and contrast the lives and attitudes of gay men in the United States over the past 80 years. The play begins and ends with a contemporary gay wedding, relating interconnecting stories of generations of gay men in New York City. Some Men premiered Off-Broadway in 2007.
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged Off-Broadway at The Public Theater on March 2, 2005, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Mel Raido is a Jamaican-born English actor. Raido moved to London at three years old. After taking elocution lessons, he started to become hooked by the acting bug at school and studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
Kristin Hanggi is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter; and theater director best known for the 2009 Broadway musical Rock of Ages. The jukebox musical received five Tony Award nominations, including a nomination for Best Direction of a Musical. She has also directed two national tours, and West End, Australia, Toronto, and Las Vegas productions.
Stephen Henry is a British stage director, a theatre producer, and an educator.
Laert Vasili is an Albanian actor and director of film and stage.
A Perfect Ganesh is a play written by Terrence McNally which premiered Off-Broadway in 1993. Narrated by Ganesha, Hindu god of "wisdom, prudence, acceptance and love," it is the story of two friends, Margaret Civil and Katharine Brynne, who explore their differences, life-tragedies, and opinions during a healing trip to India. Ganesha accompanies the women through a series of exhilarating moments and profound experiences in a climate and culture that is completely foreign to the two travelers.
And Things That Go Bump in the Night is a play by Terrence McNally. It premiered on February 4, 1964, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and ran on Broadway in 1965 for 16 performances. McNally was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant to write this play.
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Since around 1979, a chain letter has falsely claimed that a film is in the works in which Jesus will be depicted as gay and involved in a promiscuous swinger lifestyle. Born of half-truths regarding The Many Faces of Jesus, Jens Jørgen Thorsen's abandoned pornographic film about Jesus, the hoax initially implied that the film's would-be producer was a magazine that had run a poll about Thorsen's plans. The narrative has morphed over time to claim that the supposed film is an adaptation of the 1997 play Corpus Christi, which does depict Jesus as gay, although not in a sexualized manner.
