Going Long

The Messiah Formerly Known as Jesus

Running Time: 1 hr, 45 min

"Jesus was way cool. He could've played guitar better than Hendrix -- He turned water into wine and if he wanted to, he could've turned wheat into marijuana and sugar into cocaine --"

-- King Missile, "Jesus Was Way Cool"

How cool was Jesus? Well, KAiROS! Co.'s Jesus (Clint McCown) is so cool that -- when the police come to bust up a party he turns the cops into kegs -- his classmates in grade school scream "Jesus, bless my homework!" -- when tempted by the glittery bread-boobed girl in the desert (Le Easter), he -- uh, actually, he follows her into a cave where the devil mixes martinis and tries to get the Son of God to sign a record contract. But that's cool, too. In fact, KAiROS! Co's sitcom universe, vested with a Holy Spirit reminiscent of (among others) the band King Missile and the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, is a charming answer to the "lost years" question, i.e., where was Jesus in between teaching the teachers in the temple at age 12 and working miracles in his early 30s? As this production's Jesus sums it up: "I was decadent -- I was full of lust, full of pride -- I was in college."

Writer-director Richard Hinojosa's warped cosmology casts the Devil (aka THE Frog) as a pish-poshingly good-natured cave-dweller clad in a crushed velvet lounge suit, listening to "The Girl From Ipanema." Played with suave charm by Matt Sadler, THE Frog calls Jesus "my dear boy" and chides him gently about his crooked path through a series of dramatized flashbacks. Among the blasts from the past are college pal Judas (Otis Russell), all slick greaser bad-boy, and Mary Mag (Teresa Ryno, who also assistant directs), the campus slut with a heart of gold. The Virgin Mary (also played by Teresa Ryno) is a hard-talking white-trash housewife: "Jesus! You change your brother's cereal milk back from urine right now!" ("But mom, they both come from a cow -- "). Jesus' school principal (Danny Mosier) is a cigar-chomper who expels our Blessed Savior for changing his bullying classmates into goats.

It's all terribly silly. Wandering in the desert, Jesus encounters three neo-hippie demons (presumably on their way to the Burning Man festival); one of whom (What-What, played by Joey Fierro) has "POOP" written on his forehead and waves around a five foot long "kielbasa" from under his "psychedelic pubic hair." At his first party, Jesus delivers a revival-style sermon on pot legalization (a scene which should qualify the KAiROS! team as patron saints of our fair city). There's a tunic-to-T-shirt clothing montage, and Hinojosa gets a fair bit of mileage out of throwaway lines like "Oh, Jeez!" and "God damn it!" But all this giddiness works because it gilds a smart script and because the actors are unilaterally appealing. Preaching a message of fun and love, KAiROS! is (judging by the convulsing audience) made up of some amazingly successful missionaries. (Feb 4, Fri, 11:30pm; Feb 5, Sat, 10pm)