Paul Wagner @ Eclipse
10:00pm, Mon 23 Feb 2004
Score: 6
Short Review: Overblown
Paul Wagner. Apparently he plays 50 characters in this one-hour piece. The very thought of this excited me – The Entire Contents of the Refrigerator, anyone? – so I was a touch disappointed to see that two-thirds of this performance (and its characters) were pre-recorded, and projected onto a screen at the read of the stage.
Charting the principle character’s unscheduled stopover in purgatory, where he achieves cult celebrity status, the pre-recorded material is used to segue between various short “live” theatre pieces.
It’s a bold idea – a one-man show leveraging a massive multimedia onslaught – but it becomes tired and lethargic well before the end of the show. The unsubtle religion-money theme is used in a bludgeoning manner, too – but there are some real comedy gems hidden within this performance, from Pastor Chris Crane’s intro, to Wagner’s hippy-Jesus, to the riotuous Tickle-Me-Jesus doll. It’s just a shame that these bits are buried within an ultimately unsatisfying show.