After God

Nicola was on ushering duty again at Circa Theatre, this time for After God. What’s that about? Sounds a bit God-y to me…

We had dinner at ChouChou again. They do seem to be improving after the initial hiccups and less-than-perfect experiences we’ve had with them. I had fish & chips, Nicola had the burger…both competent enough, but it’s still pub grub. Lowering expectations seems to be the way to go.

After God is described by the author as a “verbatim play”. This means that the dialogue is exactly as spoken by the characters, most of whom are real people (spoiler alert: God makes an appearance, and he’s not real). It’s mainly about the author’s (Stuart McKenzie – an “everyman” played by different actors for different parts of the play) conversations about god, God, religion, theology and related subjects. Some of his conversers are ordinary people, others are highbrow theologists, professors, and religious types.

The beauty of taking real dialogue as the premise for your play is that it allows you to shape it, give it a narrative, split the scenes up so it doesn’t follow necessarily how or when it was originally said, and to juxtapose it with others from different times and places. Now, call, me old-fashioned, but I’d’ve liked it if he actually did that. Instead, it’s a mishmash of incoherent ideas, some ramblings, cute aphorisms that fall apart on a moment’s thought, and general mumbo-jumbo. Much like religion, in other words. I don’t know if that’s the author’s intent, or not. The most significant moment towards the end comes when there is a death, but I can’t help but get the feeling that it’s thrown in for dramatic effect. It added nothing to the rest of the play, but he wants you to feel dramatised and traumatised.

So yeah, a bit of a mixed bag. I give it 2/5.