The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick and Directed by Tommy Wooten, is now playing at Footlight Theater at Parliament House (410 North Orange Blossom Trail Orlando FL.) Tim Evanicki productions backed out of producing the play, so the cast and crew are now producing the show themselves. This same show appeared on the Footlight Stage way back in 2001 and was the first published play to appear on the stage.
A stage manager, (Beth Marshall), headset and prompt book at hand, brings the house lights to half, then dark, and cues the creation of the world. Throughout the play, she’s in control of everything. In other words, she’s either God, or she thinks she is. Beth brought just the right amount of arrogant and bored attitude to the part. I was laughing out loud through most of the first act.
Act One recounts the major episodes of the Old Testament, only with a twist: Instead of Adam and Eve, our lead characters are Adam (Brett McMahon) and Steve (Tripp Karrh), and Jane (Sara Jones) and Mabel (Camilla Camilo), a lesbian couple with whom they decide to start civilization (procreation proves to be a provocative challenge). My sketch might imply full frontal nudity, but Adam and Steve wore tight bathing suits with fig leaves and then puppet floppy bits. A hilarious scene involves Adam talking to a seated Jane and his bits are hardly hidden by a loin cloth inches from her face
Act One covers the Garden of Eden, an ark, a visit with a highly rambunctious Pharaoh and finally even the Nativity. Along the way, Mabel and Adam invent God, but Jane and Steve are skeptical. This brings about the Flood, during which Steve has a brief affair with a rhinoceros and invents infidelity. No longer blissful, Adam and Steve break up only to be reunited as two of the wise men at the Nativity.
Act Two jumps to modern day Manhattan. Adam and Steve are together again, and Steve is HIV positive. It’s Christmas Eve, and Jane is nine months pregnant even though she always thought of herself as the butch one. The two women want to marry and want Adam and Steve to join them in the ceremony. A wheelchair-bound, Jewish lesbian Rabbi from cable access TV arrives to officiate. The ceremony is interrupted as Jane gives birth, and Steve confides to Adam that his medication isn’t working and that he’ll probably not survive much longer. Bound by their long life together, and the miracle of birth they’ve just witnessed, the two men comfort each other even though they know their remaining time together will be short.
THE MOST FABULOUS STORY EVER TOLD
by Paul Rudnick
Directed by Tommy Wooten
At Parliament House Footlight Theatre, 410 N. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, FL 32805
Fridays and Saturdays, December 1 – 22
Special Industry Night Performance on Monday, December 11.
All performances 7:00PM.
Tickets: $20 at phouse.ticketleap.com or 888-202-1708