Brecht: "Bigger Than Jesus"?
From November 16th to December 12th, 2004, the Factory Theatre downtown Toronto, at Bathurst and Adelaide, is hosting a brand new play called Bigger Than Jesus. It is a one-man show, starring Rick Miller and is directed by Daniel Brooks. I saw the first preview of this show on November the 16th, and I reccommend it to anyone who is looking for a good time. The reason I bring this play up is because it can be seen to have a certain "Brechtian" feel to it.
* WARNING! To all those interested in seeing the show: DO NOT READ FURTHER due to numerous SPOILERS of some of the BEST PARTS OF THE SHOW. Sorry. *
The first aspect of Brecht in Bigger Than Jesus is that Mr. Miller speaks directly to the audience and tells straight up that he will be undertaking the role of Jesus for the evening. To add to this he even jumps into the audience and gets the audience to participate with him. When he decides to sing a song, he lets the audience know. He lets most of the props show. His biggest prop, the camera, is in plain view of the audience and he even lowers it and films the audience with it. He talks to the audience through it, completely killing the willing suspension of disbelief most people put on while going to see a show. He even mentions that in the play.
Messages and words are written for the audience to see and projected on the screen behind him. This is very much like how Brecht has narrative boards lowered on curtains between scenes. Mr. Miller even plays with action figures for about twenty minutes of the whole production, which is only ninety minutes long (he informs you of this as well). By doing this, he successfully keeps the audience's minds thinking and he clearly gets his messages across. This is exactly what Brecht wanted to do, but Brecht uses a grander scale. None of the Brecht plays I am familiar with are one-man shows. In full plays, it is harder to destroy the willing suspension of disbelief because there must be interaction between characters. That aside, Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks have successfully created a work of art that can be comparable to Brecht in technique and motive.
* WARNING! To all those interested in seeing the show: DO NOT READ FURTHER due to numerous SPOILERS of some of the BEST PARTS OF THE SHOW. Sorry. *
The first aspect of Brecht in Bigger Than Jesus is that Mr. Miller speaks directly to the audience and tells straight up that he will be undertaking the role of Jesus for the evening. To add to this he even jumps into the audience and gets the audience to participate with him. When he decides to sing a song, he lets the audience know. He lets most of the props show. His biggest prop, the camera, is in plain view of the audience and he even lowers it and films the audience with it. He talks to the audience through it, completely killing the willing suspension of disbelief most people put on while going to see a show. He even mentions that in the play.
Messages and words are written for the audience to see and projected on the screen behind him. This is very much like how Brecht has narrative boards lowered on curtains between scenes. Mr. Miller even plays with action figures for about twenty minutes of the whole production, which is only ninety minutes long (he informs you of this as well). By doing this, he successfully keeps the audience's minds thinking and he clearly gets his messages across. This is exactly what Brecht wanted to do, but Brecht uses a grander scale. None of the Brecht plays I am familiar with are one-man shows. In full plays, it is harder to destroy the willing suspension of disbelief because there must be interaction between characters. That aside, Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks have successfully created a work of art that can be comparable to Brecht in technique and motive.
posted by Andrew | 10:38 p.m.
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