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Friday, September 21, 2007
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Category: News and Politics
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|  | THE BOSTON GLOBE
- Interview
He's found his calling: comedy
Playing Jesus, Philbin Bowman questions religion and politics
By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff | July 24, 2007
[check out the original at:
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/07/25/hes_found_his_calling_comedy/
]
CAMBRIDGE -- The title of Abie Philbin Bowman's act is brilliant in its simplicity: "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years." And the young Irish comedian is quick to acknowledge that the title probably had a lot to do with his unexpected success at last summer's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
"There are 1,800 shows there," he says. "If you can't sell your idea in 10 seconds, you might as well not go."
But the title sold it, and his one-man show became a surprise hit in Edinburgh, then went on to sold-out success in London's West End. Now "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" has arrived at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theater in Somerville. Through Aug. 12, Philbin Bowman spins his tale of the Son of God who returns to Earth as a stand-up comic and runs into a spot of trouble at US Immigration -- he's a bearded Palestinian, after all, who's willing to die as a religious martyr.
Ironically enough, the show's original opening here had to be delayed by a week, when Philbin Bowman had a bit of immigration trouble himself. But he insists the truth is less dramatic than that sounds.
"I would love to tell you that it was this huge conspiracy in the State Department, and Bush and Cheney got involved, and then the Supreme Court intervened and overruled them," Philbin Bowman says over lunch in Cambridge. "But no, it was just bureaucracy -- not ticking all the right boxes on all the right forms, and we didn't plan enough time to get it all done."
In fact, he says, the officer he met at US Immigration was amused, not appalled, when he asked what the show was about and Philbin Bowman told him. "He said, 'He should have come to me -- he would've gone straight through!' "
In the show, however, Jesus has a rougher time of it. After walking across the Atlantic to spread Dad's message that "humor is a gift from God," he ends up in Guantanamo, being interrogated as a suspected terrorist. And it's the prison, of course, that's the true subject of the show.
"The real target is Guantanamo, something that is deeply un-Christian," Philbin Bowman says. Many Christians have seen the show, he says, and almost no one has objected to it as blasphemy.
"I think telling jokes is not quite as blasphemous as torture, for example," he says. "If you really believe in Jesus, how can you live with this?"
But he's eager to convey that message through laughter, not lectures. In a regular column for the Dubliner magazine, Philbin Bowman can argue seriously and passionately against US policies of interrogation at Guantanamo. But "in the show, I have tried very, very hard to make sure there's a joke every minute, at least," he says. "If it were didactic, nobody would come to see it. And anybody who did would probably agree. So what's the point?"
Philbin Bowman says he's not religious himself, mainly because his first experience of religion was hearing that it made Irish Protestants and Catholics want to kill each other. But he says he's "become a lot more pro-Christian" from studying Jesus's teachings; he jokes about starting a group called Atheists for Jesus. And he's most interested, he says, in engaging American Christians in thinking about what he sees as the profound hypocrisy of fighting terrorism with torture.
"So much of what Jesus says is applicable to this situation," Philbin Bowman says. " 'Turn the other cheek' -- it's not about being a wimp. . . . That to me is about understanding that if you fight back with violence, you just create a cycle of violence. Turn the other cheek -- moon someone! Mock them, humiliate them, make them look stupid."
His belief in the power of ridicule, he says, comes in part from growing up in close proximity to the sectarian violence of Northern Ireland.
"The IRA is mainly idjits," he declares, with the irresistibly blunt Irish pronunciation of that term. "You're not dealing with evil geniuses." By the same token, he says of Middle Eastern terrorists, "for the most part they're just dumb kids, angry young guys. And you should say, 'You're complete idiots.'
"Look at Timothy McVeigh," he goes on. "They treated him like a criminal, gave him a fair trial, and convicted him, and nobody thinks of him as a martyr. If instead they'd arrested all his schoolmates and interrogated them, it would have made the people of Oklahoma rise up in protest. And that's their own government -- now imagine a foreign power doing the same thing."
Philbin Bowman, who turns 26 Saturday, says he owes much of his interest in politics and comedy to his father, who's well known in Ireland as a political journalist, and to his late brother, who hooked him on Monty Python and on "Spitting Image," a British show that used latex puppets to satirize political figures.
"I think I got into politics because I wanted to get the jokes on 'Spitting Image,' " he says. "So I'm really delighted I've got something that can straddle both worlds, politics and comedy."
Eventually he plans to return to Dublin's Trinity University, where he'll pursue a master's degree in international relations, focusing on conflict resolution.
But who knows? The master's degree may have to wait, if US audiences take to "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" as eagerly as those in the UK. Philbin Bowman would like nothing better than to take it on tour -- in Texas, say.
And after that? Well, he says with a wink, he does have another idea for a show, one that draws on his previous study of Irish and Indian nationalists and their struggles against the British Empire.
"It's called 'Dancing at the Crossroads,' " he says, "and it's a Bollywood-style musical biopic of Eamon de Valera."
Ridiculous? Sure. But so is Jesus in an orange jumpsuit.
The Patriot Ledger
- THEATER REVIEW
Provocative 'Jesus' an inspired performance
By JULES BECKER
[check out the original at: http://www.patriotledger.com/articles/2007/08/06/life/life02.txt ]
Picture a single male Palestinian Jew labeled as a troublemaker and accused of lying about the identity of his father.
Imagine the same man describing his previous line of work as being on a mission from God and being prepared to die as a martyr. Now visualize American immigration officials arresting him for purportedly violating the Patriot Act, handcuffing him and dressing him in an orange prison jump suit. If you think you recognize the scenario, you may want to think again. What could be an item straight from today's headlines is actually the amusingly clever premise for Irish comedian Abie Philbin Bowman's inspired one-man performance piece ''Jesus: The Guantanamo Years,'' now in its local premiere at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theater.
As conceived and played in this brief (less than 90 minutes) and inventively provocative show, Jesus is a stand-up comedian speaking into a mike and making ''what is essentially my comeback tour.'' Consistent with Bowman's ostensibly irreverent but ultimately quite faithful approach, the title messiah is quick to remind God, here his aging and sometimes forgetful dad, that they are both, after all, Jewish, and that all people should love and respect each other. Boldly, his satiric text suggests that Jesus needs to remind his ''technophobic'' father from time to time that the Romans, not the Jews, killed Jesus and that scientific evidence of the existence of dinosaurs does not conflict with the description of the creation of the universe in the book of Genesis.
By now, the saying ''Laughter is the best medicine'' has become highly overused, but Bowman's rollicking wide-ranging reflections vividly support his Jesus' position that ''Life and religion are far too important to take seriously'' and that religions ought to employ comedy and humor to make the burdens of life easier to bear. Monty Python fans will especially enjoy complaints questioning the originality of the hit lampoon ''The Life of Brian.'' Bowman brings rich gusto to stand-up Jesus' condemnation of the film as ''a disgrace'' that ''ripped off so many of my jokes'' and his determination to pursue a legal battle against its talented writer-performers.
With proper understatement and crack timing, he also scores with supposed ''gossip'' from Heaven that Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II ''finally got together'' and that she moved on to Gandhi later. Theatergoers from all religions and denominations should find comic food for thought in a portrait of Guantanamo as a kind of maximum security prison run by KFC and a quick but telling putdown of ''The Da Vinci Code.'' The same goes for a stretch in which Jesus admits to being the only inmate not on a hunger strike during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and not looking forward to spending Yom Kippur in detention.
Make no mistake, though. ''Jesus: The Guantanamo Years'' is not merely a light-hearted blend of comic routines, one-liners and send-ups. Without turning the show's always timely message about love, respect and tolerance into a latter day Sermon on the Mount, Bowman - who admits to being an atheist - does give proper space to darker material. His Jesus thoughtfully recalls that some Auschwitz concentration camp inmates did call for trying God for not stopping the Nazis from annihilating millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Not surprisingly, there are sharp observations about Colin Powell's call for fair trials at Guantanamo and the ethical objections of even the Pentagon's own lawyers to the lack of due process there. Audience members are also likely to give serious consideration to Bowman's purposeful allusions to Israel, Kashmir and Northern Ireland in his Jesus' admonition against fighting violence with violence.
If anything requires refining here, the adjustments should be made in the talented performer's delivery. There are stretches that need a slower tempo and louder projection. Perceptive Bowman is likely to make such improvements quickly. Still, ''Jesus: The Guantanamo Years'' sharply combines laughter, spirit and ideas in an offering everyone should celebrate.
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1:50 AM
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