Jesus Loves Me, Hard

Comments (0) By Hiya Swanhuyser Wednesday, Dec 10 2008

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Normalcy unravels: After you go boombox caroling, a nativity play in a bondage-themed creche takes the edge off your stability. We usually tell you about Unsilent Night in these pages, and as usual, we recommend composer Phil Kline's traveling sound installation — see www.unsilentnight.com and bring your portable stereo. But this year, the perambulation runs smack into the arms of Adult Baby Jesus, as portrayed by Matt Cornell, aka eXtreme Elvis, in A Queer Nativity. (Send the kids home now, please; Unsilent Night is great for shorties, but the Nativity isn't. If you need us to tell you that, though ...) Mothering the hell out of ABJ is Mistress Kendra Knight, whose Web site we are too chicken to visit; sing out "Mother Mary, come to me" at your own risk. And because something is very right in the universe, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence play the Wise Men, a visually as well as a philosophically attractive situation. The manger is mobile, and the whole thing is poised to travel and repeat itself several times this evening; the production is only 15 minutes long. Cornell, as usual, has more on his mind than just blasphemous smutty fun; he calls the play "an act of irreverent defiance against religious and political institutions that would seek to marginalize entire groups and classes of people, effectively leaving them out in the cold."
Sat., Dec. 20, 8:30 p.m., 2008