Preview
While scores of scholars clashed in the battle between religion and science, God entrusted one man with a solution to combine the two and bring peace on earth. That man was John Murray Spear.
Inspired by the true story of this extraordinary 19th century character, two highly animated writers, Matt Fuller and Adam Lebovits, have issued forth a creation that simply needed to be born.
With all the voyeuristic appeal of biography, and all the ironic idealism of a perfectly gauged university production, Messiah Man brings us a tale of obsessive faith, of self-aggrandizing naïveté couched in hyper-innocent charm.
Ben Cohen is emotive and compelling in the role of John. Not leading so much as being led by the play, John is a sympathetic, charismatic soul. In one of multiple layered oppositions in the performance, he evokes the smiling clown, the essential tragedy of the comic character.
Intentional anachronism emphasizes the timelessness of the story, while twisted realism draws out questions of faith, humanity, love, and sanity.
The conviction of the acting enhances the earnest exploration of this well-crafted play, and the writers’ vision shines through in each scene. Performing in the round foregrounds the audience’s role in this fitting homage to a singular figure, following John through a handful of pivotal experiences not too outlandish for fiction.
Come take on your role with the enthusiastic and cohesive cast, in the Burton Taylor Studio, Tuesday-Saturday of 4th week at 9:30pm. Tickets are £6 / £5 concessions, including a glimpse of the incredible God Machine!
4 stars
The man behind the play…
John Murray Spear paces around his machine. Looking through darkness into the eyes of the expectant crowd, he wipes the sweat from his brow. The pregnant volunteer is in position. The crowd is in position. Placing his hands on the glass cylinders either side of the chair, he looks to the sky. The time is now.
You won’t have heard of John Murray Spear. Don’t worry, until recently, neither had we. A 19th century political activist, and one of the first Americans to advocate the abolition of slavery no less, John began life with his feet firmly on the ground. However, marred by his own incompetence and inability to express himself, John’s activism soon petered out. But what was the alternative for a man with a desperate desire to help humanity but no clear idea how? John soon joined the Church.
But this too was met with failure. Naive and innocent, John wandered the country, challenging the orthodoxies of the day – and being repeatedly beaten up in return. Of course, there are only so many beatings a person can take before they either call time on their career or do something radical, so John had a decision to make.
Stay with us, this is where things get weird. Walking a path paved with the ghosts of geology professors and Benjamin Franklin, violent preachers and three hundred lost orphans, John Murray Spear worked his way towards his ultimate work: the God Machine.
The challenge of staging the life of possibly the sweetest and most bizarre man who ever lived was always going to be huge. His bustling, surreal story bursts at the seams of an hour-long show, and this meant that a severe edit was in order. The sex communes and the invention of the ingenious Duck-Boat sadly had to go, but what was left was even stranger.
To perform this story in a conventional style would require a cast of hundreds and a budget of thousands. We have neither. Therefore, we turned to a more picaresque style, with just five actors playing a huge array of characters, and a manic use of music and lights. John stands in the middle of the production, a not-entirely-stable centre around which the madness spins. When the dust settles, maybe this time people will remember his name.
Matt Fuller and Benjamin Kirby
