Saturday, May 21, 2016
QUEEN JESUS is about to open in Brazil...
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN opens in Belo Horizonte tomorrow. Saturday.
I write this tonight, Friday, just before the beginning of the final run through.
As I leave the rehearsal to put the bread in the oven I can hear the shouts of the anti government demonstration in the near by city square. "Temer fora!" they're shouting. And behind the cries of Temer out! Temer Out! I can hear the drumming of the samba.
One of Dilma Rousseff's last actions before she was ousted as president and replaced in a constitutional coup by the right was to sign a decree allowing trans public service employees the right to carry their real names on their work identification documents. The right to put their own name on their lanyard.
This gave some of us the very limited right to our own identity in our place of work.
But I read in the paper today that a determined group of Congress members are working to reverse the decree.
The spiteful contemptible vindictiveness of their actions enrages me.
Particularly because it is being carried out in the name of Christ.
I have a press interview in the afternoon, while I'm kneading the bread, and I use it to express my outrage.
It is beyond extraordinary to be here in Brazil, now, with our play in which a trans Jesus blesses everyone: no matter what their colour or gender or sexual orientation.
Astonishing to be able to stand up on stage and remind everyone that Jesus did not at any time condemn us.
That he never condemned us for being gay or being trans and urged us never to judge each other.
But instead to love each other and treat each other as we would like to be treated ourselves.
There is nothing controversial in my play, I tell the interviewer. It just says what it says in the Bible.
And I'm proud to be saying it. Proud of the interest the play has generated. I have been (respectfully) interviewed by every major newspaper in Brasil. And today I see myself on the front cover of the cultural section of O Globo, which is perhaps the biggest Brazilian newspaper of them all.
Proud that all our shows sold out almost immediately tickets were put on sale and that we are putting on two more.
Proud of the amazing smell of freshly baked bread coming out of the oven.
Police helicopters are circling over head as I open the over door, take out the bread, and take it down to rehearsal.
Tomorrow it will feed its first audience.....
I write this tonight, Friday, just before the beginning of the final run through.
As I leave the rehearsal to put the bread in the oven I can hear the shouts of the anti government demonstration in the near by city square. "Temer fora!" they're shouting. And behind the cries of Temer out! Temer Out! I can hear the drumming of the samba.
One of Dilma Rousseff's last actions before she was ousted as president and replaced in a constitutional coup by the right was to sign a decree allowing trans public service employees the right to carry their real names on their work identification documents. The right to put their own name on their lanyard.
This gave some of us the very limited right to our own identity in our place of work.
But I read in the paper today that a determined group of Congress members are working to reverse the decree.
The spiteful contemptible vindictiveness of their actions enrages me.
Particularly because it is being carried out in the name of Christ.
I have a press interview in the afternoon, while I'm kneading the bread, and I use it to express my outrage.
It is beyond extraordinary to be here in Brazil, now, with our play in which a trans Jesus blesses everyone: no matter what their colour or gender or sexual orientation.
Astonishing to be able to stand up on stage and remind everyone that Jesus did not at any time condemn us.
That he never condemned us for being gay or being trans and urged us never to judge each other.
But instead to love each other and treat each other as we would like to be treated ourselves.
There is nothing controversial in my play, I tell the interviewer. It just says what it says in the Bible.
And I'm proud to be saying it. Proud of the interest the play has generated. I have been (respectfully) interviewed by every major newspaper in Brasil. And today I see myself on the front cover of the cultural section of O Globo, which is perhaps the biggest Brazilian newspaper of them all.
Proud that all our shows sold out almost immediately tickets were put on sale and that we are putting on two more.
Proud of the amazing smell of freshly baked bread coming out of the oven.
Police helicopters are circling over head as I open the over door, take out the bread, and take it down to rehearsal.
Tomorrow it will feed its first audience.....
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