divine lite
by Douglas Messerli
David
Javerbaum An Act of God / Los Angeles, the Ahmanson Theatre. The
performance I saw was on February 10, 2016
I don’t know what has happened to my sense of humor.
At Sean Hayes’ pleasant but also somewhat aggravating performance last night of
David Javerbaum’s An
Act of
God, the
audience in the near-to-capacity Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles seemed
absolutely delighted with what being said, laughing, sometimes quite
boisterously, upon cue throughout the play, while I sat on the aisle stone faced.
Certainly, it’s not that I don’t have a long-lens perspective when it comes to
anything religious. As I’ve written elsewhere in these pages, any religious convictions I once had have been long abandoned, and any “god” I might envision has very
little do with the Judeo-Christian one which this play joyfully parodied.
Perhaps
it’s simply that I don’t watch enough television, particularly television
comedies, and, accordingly, the stream of lame one-liners that this confection proffered
up, just wasn’t—to use what today has almost become a political metaphor—my cup
of tea. I mean, come on, shouldn’t I be able to chortle over a god who admits that he has
nothing against gays, lesbians, transsexuals, or any other sexuality?; who
reveals the fact that the first couple upon earth were actually Adam and Steve,
not Adam and Eve? It was all that phallic snake’s fault, who, after feeding
them that apple, made them feel as if they’d sinned, casting them out their gay
paradise.
And who
mightn’t like a god who's fed up with everybody taking his name in “vain,’
thanking him for their achievements which they've accomplished by themselves: “Kanye, next time you win the Grammy Award and you thank me for your
‘God-given talents,’ they’re going to get God-taken, understand?” And this god
seems spot-on in his observation that there’s something perverse about a child,
laying down to sleep, praying “if I should die before I wake.”
Indeed this good natured fellow was kind
of fed up with the centuries of human misunderstanding regarding his Ten
Commandments and other teachings, realizing through this TV-like talk appearance
that there is “something seriously wrong with me.” And by the end of the
evening, god is perfectly willing to let us folk go our own way and to stop
relying on him. He doesn’t even answer all our prayers, let alone can he explain
the Holocaust, the Flood, and demanding that Abraham sacrifice his son. I mean this is a god who’s obviously
gone through therapy (even it’s only self-therapy) and is perfectly able to
confess that he’s not always very nice—which, of course, makes us like all the
more! It’s hard not to believe in such a jovial fellow. Certainly the audience
did, applauding him right up his stairway to heaven—beautifully conceived, I must
admit, by scenic designer Scott Pask.
So what’s my problem? Why couldn’t I laugh along with all the others? It’s not easy to explain, but I guess even in my disbelief I take true belief more seriously than the well-dressed heathens who made up this audience. I mean, even as this user-friendly god points out, terrible things have been allowed to happen in the name of the Christian god, so terrible that’s it’s not simple to just forgive and forget as he might command. And every day others who can’t or won’t give him up go on cooking up more terrible things to do for those of us who can’t or won’t believe in Him. And after all, this is just one “god.” What about all the others?
So frankly, it’s hard for me to believe in a
PC god, who just wants to be loved, even for one night. Why is it funny to dish
what so many deeply believe in, when the belief itself can continue to be so
destructive to all? Oh come-on I can hear you saying, “lighten up!” Even this
god seems a little amused by the constant suffering of his son—not his only
child evidently. But then, that has always been the big problem for me: I have never touched by divine light.
Los
Angeles, February 11, 2016
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