{"id":3098,"date":"2012-04-21T20:59:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T00:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=3098"},"modified":"2012-04-21T21:28:09","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T01:28:09","slug":"sanctified-skullduggery-incorruptible-at-umbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=3098","title":{"rendered":"Sanctified Skullduggery: INCORRUPTIBLE at UMBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Theater Reviews Page<\/a> | Previous Theater Review<\/a> | Next Theater Review<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Sanctified Skullduggery: INCORRUPTIBLE at UMBC<\/h2>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/h2>\n

\u00a0Posted on BroadwayWorld.com April 19, 2012<\/p>\n

I had not heard of Michael Hollinger\u2019s 1996 farce, Incorruptible<\/em>, until the University of Maryland Baltimore County Theater Program\u2019s new production. I\u2019m grateful to UMBC for bringing it to my attention.<\/p>\n

The veneration of deceased saints\u2019 corpses and belongings and the attribution of miracles to them were practices wide open to fraud and abuse, a perception that goes back to Luther and Chaucer. The cult of relics, which reached its height during the Middle Ages, now seems creepy and risible to all but the most steadfast modern Catholic believers \u2013 and hence grist for the comic mill. Incorruptible<\/em> is loosely based on a celebrated fight between two medieval churches over one saint\u2019s remains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In brief, the premise is that the relics at one French monastery have \u201cgiven out\u201d and are failing to produce new miracles. Those miracles being the monastery\u2019s only profit center, something must be done, and quickly. The weaselly Brother Martin (Brad Widener) hits on a scheme to force Jack, a third-rate minstrel and even lower-tier grave robber (David Brasington), to revive the monastery\u2019s economy by turning the monastery\u2019s graveyard into a kind of saint junkyard, purveying skulls, fingers and other bones to any European cathedral with the need and the ready cash for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In classic farcical style, no sooner does this osseous juggling act come under control than the ante is upped: the monastery must now meet the demand for an \u201cincorruptible,\u201d a corpse that never decomposes, the Rolls-Royce of relics. Jack\u2019s girlfriend Marie (Sydney Kleinberg) (or is she the girlfriend of Brother Felix (Christopher Dews)?) seems ready to be pressed into service over what may be her dead body. Or maybe she will fly the coop, leaving the monastery with nothing to show the Pope when he inauspiciously calls. The monks, torn between greed, fear, sibling rivalry, and conscience, will have to find a way to meet all eventualities. And only a bona fide miracle will save them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We in the audience, we of little faith, must still cling to our belief that in a farce, all will work eventually for the good. And seeing how these apparently unreconcilable elements coalesce in the inevitable happy ending is the fun Hollinger\u2019s play completely delivers. One might wish that, in keeping with all proper costume dramas, farce included, he\u2019d written his lines with British-sounding actors in mind, but the wisecracks are all written full of modern American phrases like \u201cattitude problem.\u201d So it doesn\u2019t matter much that none of the home-fried young actors could be mistaken as a refugee from Masterpiece Theatre. Medieval people didn\u2019t sound like this, but then, medieval Frenchmen didn\u2019t even speak English for some reason. So it\u2019s silly to carp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regrettably, owing to my schedule, I had to see this piece at previews, where a blown cue led to the do-over of a few minutes, but I am confident that this student troupe, which I have seen and written of approvingly more than once, will do just fine in the \u201cfor real\u201d performances. I particularly enjoyed the performances of Ms. Kleinberg, game whether the role called for her to dance or play dead, and Jessica Ruth Baker as the intimidating abbess Agatha, CEO of the competing ecclesiastical enterprise down the road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Incorruptible<\/em> is a hoot. You should go.<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn except for graphic content<\/p>\n

Theater Reviews Page<\/a> | Previous Theater Review<\/a> | Next Theater Review<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The monastery must now meet the demand for an \u201cincorruptible,\u201d a corpse that never decomposes, the Rolls-Royce of relics. Marie seems ready to be pressed into service over what may be her dead body. And only a bona fide miracle will save the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closeup","category-theater-reviews-and-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}