Talent and effort are not enough. Great or even good theater needs more, the undefinable something that makes it work.
Tonight's Magic Theatre (http://magictheatre.org) world premiere of Lloyd Suh's "Jesus in India" offers a hardworking, excellent young cast, but without theater magic, the result is a less than half-baked mess.
Suh, whose last play in the Magic, "American Hwangap," was an amusing comedy about his Korean heritage, had an interesting idea here.
What about the "lost years" of Jesus, the unknown period between his childhood and when he first appeared as a teacher. Given "the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar," that would be about age 30, leaving some 20 years of mystery.
What, indeed, if Jesus spent the time wandering along the Silk Road, ending up in India, there to be exposed to some anachronistic Buddhist teachings and an unending supply of substances then apparently legal? What, furthermore, if he became a bass guitarist in a rock band?
All this and much, much more could possibly - although not likely - pass, but Suh doesn't even try to stop and make something out of it. He charges on and on, for 80 long minutes, in a juvenile attempt to pile meaningless absurdities on loud, unfunny jokes. Example: a conversation between three men, each thinking mistakenly he was addressed, so the clarification is made: "I am talking to him, not you." Hilarious? Not after five minutes of repeating the shtick.
Perhaps even all that could be accepted as silly comedy or a failed attempt at the theater of the absurd, but the coup de grace is the playwright's sanctimonious claim that this awkward, arrant nonsense, "a rebooting or prequel to the biblical story... is about humanity, coming of age, finding your way, about transformation and humanity." The Three Stooges sure missed out on making the claim.
Now for the good news: the uniformly young cast is consistently good, at times coming close to making sense of the senseless. Damon Daunno, as the 18-year-old Jesus, combines comic genius (when he is stoned, which is often, he looks totally authentic), virtuoso guitar playing, and the ability to keep the focus of the audience on him even when he is silent.
Bobak Bakhtiari (Gopal) and Jomar Tagatac (Sushil) can't keep up with Daunno as musicians, but they are fine actors, especially Bakhtiari, who deals with the complex and ridiculous monologues Suh puts in his mouth in an expert fashion. There may well be a big-stage Lucky (of "Waiting for Godot") in his future.
Mahira Kakkar handles the daunting dual role of Jesus' lover and mother, and Jessica Lynn Carroll brings appealing high energy to the role of a foul-mouthed smitten disciple/guarding angel.
Daniella Topol directed, Shirley Fishman is credited as dramaturg, and Michael Locher is responsible for the set centered around a pile of bicycle tires. A possible explanation for that is the bicycle with a camel head that serves as transportation for Jesus.
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