Holy Crap!
Holy Crap!
By Dustin Burton, Taylor Bullock, Lucas Koester
Directed by Kenny Howard
Starring David Lee, Michael Wanzie, and Joe Swanberg
Footlights Theatre, Orlando FL</strong>
Subtlety was never a virtue of the Footlights Theatre, and tonight it was squashed flat by the juggernaut of this “Everything you hate about religion” Holiday fest-a-rama. Jesus (Swanberg) and the Easter Bunny (Lee) are hanging out at a bar, making their own drinks while Mrs. Claus (Darby Ballard) makes cookies and other tchotkes for their evil multidimensional corporation. Jesus hasn’t seen Dad in a while, but He keeps up with his only Son via twitter. Mrs. Claus has bigger plans, she and Archangel Michael (Steven Arwood) plan to take over heaven by getting Jesus to renounce his claims on the throne. This involves convincing Santa (Wanzie) he’s really Odin and that the Easter Bunny is an obscure female goddess Estra. Then hilarity ensues.
“Holy Crap!” is the freshman script from Burton, Bulloch, and Koester and depends more on rapid fire gags than characters or situation development. Fortunately, the gags come as fast as the actors can shout their lines, and they are good enough to make you forget the back stories you learned in Sunday School or Classics 101. Wanzie is at his funniest running around in a Viking helmet and pelts, Orlando Weekly mainstay Billy Manes gets punched out in a video, and Eric Fagan gleefully mixes simpering Santa fanaticism with an evil Irish brogue as the leprechaun union organizer. David Lee climbed to the top of the funnyman heap with his “Hunter S Thompson in rehab” look, its complete gonzo under a pile of white fur. Another highlight – it’s great to see Darby Ballard back on stage in a skimpy red dress.
There were plenty of gags and funny situations, even if the theology, mythology and plot was completely contrived. What weakened this show was its intensity: everyone came out of the gate yelling, and there was no sense of comedic build. As soon an opportunity for a gag arose, someone shot it down, and in the spaces between the laughs we got more than a few diatribes. Whatever your take on the supernatural might be, you’ll have no doubt about the writers’ position. “Holy Crap!” not only put a bullet between the eyes of organized religion, it broke the body on a wheel, drown and dismembered the corpse and then fed the pieces to the ravens. Between the faux creep of Halloween and the even faux-er joyousness of Christmas, there’s room for a religious skewering, but the party politics ought to keep to election season.
For more information on the Footlights Theatre, please visit http://www.theparlimenthouse.com or http://www.Wanzie.com
