Word: comical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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DESPITE exceptional acting by most of Christ's Clowns, however, their crusade is not as humorous as playwright Barnes intends. Try as the actors and director do, they fail to turn Barnes' anti-clerical, left-leaning lines into truly hysterical happenings. Barnes' comic moments are often one-liners, and they grow few and far between as the play progresses. Some of the lines even seem anachronistic--like the one about God: "She is Black...
...that the time for sadness has come now that the dying is done. Barnes continues to hammer at the same arguments, the same feminist, anti-clerical strains that he has touted all along. Whatever power they had earlier in the play, these ideas are already beginning to lose their comic appeal, and when made serious, they fall flat. The actors--who look ridiculous to start with in their spectacularly clean frocks, rags and robes--really cannot effect the change with much success...
...ability to remain serious in the face of completely preposterous situations heightens the comic sense of the play. Particularly in the three-way confrontation scene between Judith, her husband David and Myra (Simon's girlfriend), Simpson's attitude of mock indignation is hilarious...
Andrew J. Hill is also wonderful as Simon Bliss. Hill is truly comic in the opening scene as he mixes an air of half-hearted interest with one of total indifference. His deadpan delivery adds to the humor of the play...
...spite of the clever script's vivid characters, the rest of the actors give uneven performances. Linda Klaamas, who plays the Clara the maid, has a few truly comic moments, but these brief seconds do not constitute a great performance...