Saint Mark's Gospel

09/19/2018

A kindred spirit.

My daughter asks me the hard questions because her parents are the other thing she has unquestioning faith in—for now.

03/30/2017

This just in from the performer: "Turns out I'm 100% Jewish, and they gave me a nice, smiley picture of Sarah Silverman to prove it! Not too shabby for a cradle Southern Baptist who now belongs to an Anglo-Catholic congregation in the Episcopal Church, and whose one-man show is entitled 'Saint Mark's Gospel.' Is it kosher to wish yourself 'Mazal tov'?" [NB: We realize that that's Natalie Portman. You get Sarah Silverman at the end of the quiz, but only if you're 100%, like "Saint Mark's Gospel."]

Oy vey!

02/10/2017

Hail and farewell, mon semblable, mon frère.

In a half-century career that spanned film, TV and theater, Mr. McCowen’s greatest triumphs were on the stage. But movie audiences knew him as well.

04/24/2016

The Teaneck show was an absolute blast, with one of the best audiences a performer could ever hope for -- absolutely committed and attentive, eager to take part, and (best of all) not afraid to laugh at the jokes, of which Mark wrote aplenty -- and local management that made the whole thing easy and comfortable. We were even able to accommodate the setup for the next morning's patronal feast, turning a mass of musicians' chairs into a workable stand-in for the Temple in Jerusalem. It was really neat doing Mark's show in one of his own houses, with a nifty banner and Tim Wells's beautiful springtime decorations. But that audience: oh my! If you can raise a solid laugh with a line like "And the fishes," you've got a fantastic bunch of collaborators.

04/21/2016

Just in time for Saturday's performance in Teaneck, New Jersey, comes this terrific performance of a choral version of Gerald Cohen's setting of "Dayeinu," the tune that provides the exit-music for "Saint Mark's Gospel." So a Good Pesach to Gerald, and to all our Jewish friends in Teaneck. Sorry for the schedule-conflict, but when St. Mark's Church wants to celebrate the eve of its patronal feast, and it falls on the First Day of Passover, there's not much a poor player can do!

Conducted by Cantor Joel Caplan, HaZamir North Jersey and accompanied by Cantor Gerald Cohen on the piano. HaZamir, the International Jewish High School Choi...

03/19/2016

The Woods Hole performance last Sunday afternoon went up against a lot of things, including (but not limited to) the floral decorations not showing up, the sound-system refusing to work without five minutes of flattery before each part of the show, an immoveable upright piano adding a faint happy-hour vibe to the Last Supper, the performer forgetting to take off his glasses before Part Two and having to find a way to ditch them convincingly during the Agony in the Garden, and the first day of pretty weather in Massachusetts Bay since 1620, which meant that we probably should have bagged the whole thing and spent the day outdoors, because the light inside the church was so gorgeous that -- well, let's just say that a few passages were creatively remembered, if at all. For all that, it was quite a show, if we do say so -- and that includes Gethsemane in broad daylight, an acting-challenge if ever there was one! -- and the audience was substantial, and amazingly focused and attentive.

Our hats are off to the rector and warden of the Church of the Messiah, and to the church's Altar Guild, who let us pillage their stocks and make off with their flowers when it became clear that ours wouldn't arrive, and that every florist or crypto-florist on the Upper Cape (including those nice folks at the Mobil Mart on Route 28) had already closed for the weekend. It made us feel really bad about blasting that fig-tree on the way in from Bethany (11:12-14; 20-21).

03/12/2016

The beautiful churchyard at Church of the Messiah, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where "Saint Mark's Gospel" holds forth tomorrow afternoon. These people have been remarkably inclusive for a remarkably long time. The stone in the foreground, facing you, commemorates Feiihie of Brussa (who today would probably be called Fahim of Bursa, Bursa being a large city in northwestern Anatolia, in Turkey), who died in 1921; it continues, "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Amen." Beyond Feiihie lies the family plot of the Cranes, who plainly had something profound to do with China.

03/12/2016

We're in the Cape Cod Times -- twice! -- once in a perceptive writeup in the Religion section (see below), and again as one of the "Best Bets for Things To Do on the Cape This Weekend" (http://www.capecodtimes.com/entertainmentlife/20160310/best-bets-for-things-to-do-on-cape-this-week). Tomorrow, March 13, at 3:00 p.m. Send your multitudes!

‘Saint Mark’s Gospel’ to be staged Sunday WOODS HOLE – Jesus of Nazareth will be portrayed as a man of many

03/05/2016

The Woods Hole performance is in The Enterprise/Cape News, featuring one of Todd France's finest production stills. March 13, at 3:00 p.m. Details and tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2496759

Christopher Johnson will bring his one-man show “Saint Mark’s Gospel” to Church of the Messiah in Woods Hole on Sunday, March 13, for its Cape Cod debut. Performance time is

03/02/2016

We've just announced another upcoming performance, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Teaneck, New Jersey, on April 23, with stories in The Patch (link shown here) and NorthJersey.com, the snazzy e-manifestation of what old bowsers like us still think of as The Bergen Record. More to follow on this performance.

02/27/2016

One of the most thoughtful comments on the Cambridge performance earlier this month comes from stage-director, dramaturg, and writer Peter Littlefield. Here's what he wrote:

"A truly spiritual evening. It made me think of icon painting, where, by simply reproducing a pre-existing sacred image, the artist makes himself transparent to its light. The subtlety of Christopher Johnson’s performance lent a powerful immediacy to the text. His sense of inward and outward movement and the relationship he maintained to the candlelight was so beautiful. And when he reached the passion's powerful conclusion, he suddenly broke away from the narrative, saying that early Christians had altered the ending, unhappy with its ambiguity, and that he wasn't sure how to proceed himself. I thought it had the interesting effect of acknowledging his role as the teller of the story, which, even in the gospel, is a reflection of a greater mystery, one we can try to live by but never completely pin down. I won't reveal his solution, but it lent a hermeneutical perspective to the proceedings, distancing the gospel texts while at the same time illuminating their profound humanity."

Now, Mr. Littlefield knows a thing or two about performance, having been "deconstructing" operas at major companies in the United States and Europe for more than thirty years, and having written and staged many original works, including, most recently, “Doctor Schweitzer’s Practical Heart." The production of Handel’s "Partenope" that he co-directed with Christopher Alden for the English National Opera won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding New Opera Production and went on to revivals at Opera Australia and the San Francisco Opera. We've attached the trailer for the San Francisco production, with the warning that while "Saint Mark's Gospel" has its share of double-takes and even a bit of slapstick, it includes no tap-dancing. That you know of. Yet.

Partenope Trailer - San Francisco Opera