If your kind of Messiah is less Handel and more ha-ha, the holidays will never be the same for you once you’ve heard Victoria Clark ask William Ferguson to stop playing with himself because “we have tickets to the stoning”. At the New York City premiere of The Collegiate Chorale’s production of Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy), Clark played Mandy, the long-suffering mother of Brian (Ferguson), a simple young man who finds himself in the predicament of trying to convince people that he is not in fact the Messiah. The comic oratorio, with text by Eric Idle and music by John Du Prez (who also co-wrote Spamalot), is based on the iconic Monty Python film The Life of Brian, and was originally commissioned by the Luminato Festival in Toronto in 2007; and it has to be said, it was about time we got a live performance of it.
Described by Eric Idle as “baroque-n-roll”, the chorale performed a pastiche of genres that ranged from doo-wop to show tunes; there were also singing sheep and the NY Metro Pipe Band, all of whom were accompanied by the majestic Orchestra of St. Luke’s under the direction of Ted Sperling. Besides Clark and Ferguson, the featured soloists were rounded up by the divine Lauren Worsham, Marc Kudisch and Idle himself, who served as narrator, and also played a myriad of characters, not to mention singing the lead in a rousing finale that had everyone at Carnegie Hall smiling from cheek to cheek.
In terms of visual and musical synergy, few events in 2014 were as entertaining, unique and profound, for as much as Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) can be thought of as just a comedy, the performance seemed to take on a much more political subtext, as it was impossible not to think of Brian as an Obama figure, being asked for too much, when he sometimes is given so little to work with. It helped that Ferguson was so effortlessly charming, his wonderful voice gaining a delicious comic layer by the fact that he looked so confused in pieces when he confronted the entire choir. The text pokes fun at Republicans (who it suggests have come a long way from the idea the Romans had when they “invented” them) and there’s even a hilarious mention of a “burning bush” coming out of a “white house”.
While Monty Python’s work was always political, the chorale achieved sublimity because it felt like the most appropriate piece to accompany the holidays, given the shaky state of the nation in terms of ideological and sociological conflicts. It was just the right amount of political commentary, entertainment value (there’s a mention of a herd of Meryl Streeps which had the venue roaring with laughter) and despite Brian’s efforts not to get involved with people, it created an enchanting sense of community, for it’s likely to assume that no one leaving Carnegie Hall last night will have an unkind thought during the rest of the season.
