The Man Jesus
Lyric Theatre, Belfast
****

In a world premiere for the Lyric, the distinguished actor Simon Callow – a graduate of Queen's University – is giving new voice to the most persuasive, frequently told story of the past 2,000 years.

But in partnership with writer Matthew Hurt, there is little that is familiar in Callow’s angry, impassioned narrative, which, at a non-stop 105 minutes, represents a considerable feat of memory, multi-role playing and show-stopping physical performance.

Utterly exposed in the huge, stripped-back space, his sparse resources combine exceptional acting skills with brilliantly effective lighting by Mark Howland, a spine-tingling soundscape by Alma Kelliher, and a higgledy-piggledy heap of wooden chairs.

Out of this pile, Fiammetta Horvat’s design enables vivid recreations of the Last Supper, the money-lenders in the temple, the brutality of Golgotha and other set pieces.

Both writer and actor have been exposed to a variety of images of Christ throughout their lives – Callow as a lapsed Catholic, Hurt at the hands of his French-Mauritian grandmother.

They have crafted a central figure very far removed from the wanly smiling Sacred Heart or gentle Jesus meek and mild, who, in the Sunday school hymn, wants children to turn into sunbeams.

Their Christ is a hellraiser, a rebel, pursued not by the great and the good but by the whores and thieves and wrongdoers of society.

Jeshua (Jesus) never actually appears in person but is observed through a series of muscular, rough-speaking witness accounts, emanating from pivotal figures among his close-knit Jewish community: mother Mary (Miriam), half-brother Jacob (Yaakov), devoted admirer Yehuda (Judas), fisherman Simon (Shimon), and his charismatic cousin John the Baptiser.

The piece is awash with Biblical references, given new, often subversive, interpretation.

The request is issued to turn water into wine at the wedding at Cana, because Jeshua and his mates have drunk all the booze provided by their hosts. No mealy-mouthed pacifist, he declares that his words “will turn sons against fathers, against brothers – against their mother”.

In all the intensity and strong characterisations, there are sections where director Joseph Alford rather loses the plot, prompting the audience’s concentration to waver somewhat.

But it is still fascinating to be exposed to the profound personal needs lurking beneath the miracles, and to register those echoes of jihadist preaching and Israeli-Palestinian sabre-rattling, which could have emanated straight out of our own troubled times.
Until April 20th