When he puts it on in the U.S., he calls it Bigger than J. But here in the Great Heathen North, Rick Miller calls it by its full sacrilegious title: Bigger than Jesus.
Funnyman Miller’s new one-man show – his most famous is a decade-old, still-touring Fringe hit called MacHomer – opens in previews tonight at Factory Theatre.
The lapsed Catholic’s play, co-created by uberdirector Daniel Brooks, explores the various things done in Jesus’s name over the past two millennia and features many funny voices by the flexi-vocalled actor. In a recent piece in the T-Star Brother Miller vows to explain it all for us: "How come this crucified Jewish man has wound up as the star of blockbuster movies and Broadway musicals? Why does he get onto boxer shorts and key chains? How did he become part of our popular culture?"
Questions we suspect are not answered in Bigger than Jesus include: “Why does every theatre artist who had a strict Catholic upbringing have to write a play about the religion he/she has left behind?” and “But is it bigger than Dick Cheney?"