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Broken Wings

Posted by Al Rae | Sunday July 22, 2012

Rating: 3 Stars

Company: take me home, Winnipeg, MB

Genre: Comedy

Venue: Venue #15 - Studio 320

The professional production values and terrific acting keep the show moving.
—Al Rae

Tom Cruise had Rene Zelwegger at hello, and this company had me when they played Jay-Z's "Lucifer" in the run up to the show.

The beats continue with Borisa Sabjic's effective sound design and Clare Therese keeps the hip hop hopping by playing God with a street swagger.

Gender bending abounds since Lucifer is Lucy, played out of drag by the amazing Rob McLaughlin. Johnathon Bevan is fine as the troubled soul our two original antagonists want to tap, literally.

The professional production values and terrific acting keep the show moving when the play's philosophical wrestling slows down the more enjoyable on-stage wrestling. It's a mash up, in a way, of J.B, the fine verse drama that mines the same source material (The Bible) and the over-the-top film The Devil's Advocate with Pacino as "Milton." And while we're at: it Lou Cipher played by DeNiro in the excessive Angel Heart.

The play doesn't answer any Big Questions and the "problem" of free will seems more and more likely a pseudo problem but to reach and mostly succeed in making key Christian concepts interesting and often funny deserves praise.