Taking the Jesus Pill

by Charlie Terrell

King King - June 28, 2006

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

Theatre often thrives on nurturing its outsider status, and though it has more room to flourish in L.A. than sometimes suggested, it’s certainly the case that it will never—never, ever, ever—be seen as an equal to its artistic big brother in the city.  Taking the Jesus Pill, currently playing Wednesday nights in Hollywood at the King King, has been around long enough to have earned its outsider stripes, but it’s clearly running with the in crowd now, produced by Amoeba and Polly Parsons, daughter to L.A. golden child Gram Parsons.

Taking the Jesus Pill is a blend of very modern theatrical presentation—video projection screens, smoke and lights galore, live rock music—with the timeless narrative themes of forbidden love, escaping sinister pasts, and trying to make peace with the world and make sense of it all.  

Theatre benefits tremendously from the workshop process, and playwright/songwriter Charlie Terrell has been able to tweak his work since initially staging it in 1998 (and then more recently during the past two summers).  This version is considered the “finished” production, and it’s become a very specific world that is brought to life well before the curtain opens, as showgoers are greeted by slick-talking preachers and scantily clad showgirls.  A delayed start is offset by the availability of booze, and director Joe Peracchio—who also zestfully portrays sleazy strip club owner Ratchet Palomino—promising good things to come.

The action plays out around the audience, making full use of the performance space (a few scenes even take place atop the bar).  It’s a highly stylized production, which leads to a few performances that feel pushed (like Nikki McCauley’s tragic heroine Tina).  Tina is the hellraisin’, boychasin’ daughter of a snake-handling preacher (Lester Shoats, played to the hilt by Michael Childers) and his Tammy Faye-ish wife (Josephine, played by Irene Muzzy).  She meets the affable Johnny 3:16 (Brandon Karrer), who is quickly smitten and determined to whisk her away from her numerous father-related troubles.  In between scenes, Terrell and his band (the unfortunately titled Mojo Monkeys) keep up the energy with barroom rockers that move the story along or sometimes merely rehash what the audience has just seen.  The projection screens provide a means of cheaply and effectively setting the scene, or even bringing a character’s conscious to vibrant life.

The play really takes off when Childers arrives to chew scenery as the shady preacher who espouses a hedonistic gospel (immediately following the performance, the King King converts to a club night, so patrons have a chance to join his congregation).  Terrell’s writing crackles best when the preacher is tearing into his lustful sermons, and it’s interesting that the real-life Childers actually is the son of a fire and brimstone preacher.  Johnny 3:16 doesn’t like Lester’s sermons—and really doesn’t like his parenting skills—which leads to a well-staged showdown in which the hero and antagonist engage in a scripture showdown, each bending the Bible to fit his own worldview.

Unfortunately, Taking the Jesus Pill never really digs in deeper, settling instead for a scattershot second act that involves predictable plot turns, and a plodding pace due to way too much music from Terrell.  The unexpected elephant in the room with Jesus Pill is that Terrell, for all his talent in shaping the world of the play, didn’t write very interesting songs.  Also, because he isn’t really a character (technically, he plays “Singer”), the songs don’t drive the story or flesh out the internal life of the characters as they do in, say, Hedwig & The Angry Inch (or most musicals, for that matter).  Regardless, Jesus Pill delivers an enthusiastic and good-looking spectacle, and isn't the sort of experience that one can ever get from the movie theatre.