REVIEW: Incorruptible

Bernie Cardell plays a grave-robbing monk with a head for business in Firehouse Theater's hilariously irreverent but never blasphemous comedy Incorruptible.

No bones about it, Michael Hollinger's brilliantly dark comedy Incorruptible shines a bright spotlight on the Dark Ages. Firehouse Theater Company's uproarious production, which transforms the cozy John Hand Theatre into a mirthfully macabre monastery, brings contemporary comic sensibilities to a period -- not so different from today -- when blind and desperate superstition drove the economy, but faith, hope and love, while elusive, still prevailed.

It's 1250 A.D., and the bones of St. Foy, displayed on the altar at a provincial French monastery, haven't worked a miracle in 13 years. But the monks, led by amiable abbot Charles (Wade Livingston) still charge a penny for the privilege to pray. Meanwhile, a rival convent, led by the abbot's twisted sister Agatha (Nita Froelich) have gotten their hands on the skeletal remains of another saint, and miracles--and money--are coming in hand over fist.

Faced with pastoral failure and economic disaster, the monks, aided and abetted by a one-eyed minstrel of questionable morality (Brian Brooks), concoct a bailout plan involving digging up their small cemetery and selling the bones to the highest bidders. The "corruptible" monks, having descended to fraud and grave desecration, find that this slippery slope leads them to promise the pope an "incorruptible," the body of a saint so holy that it refuses to decay. And the only way to obtain a "fresh" cadaver is to make one.

Under Pat Payne's inspired direction, the laughs are continuous, with some of the best show-stopping lines delivered by Bernie Cardell as a monk consumed by greed, while the gigantic oaf Brother Olf (Jesse Pearlman) is a dim-witted but endlessly entertaining sight gag. Rita Broderick's Brechtian style Peasant Woman would chew the scenery if she had more than a couple teeth. Jack Wefso plays a winsome monk with a wandering eye for female beauty, and Beth Davis plays Marie, a wandering female beauty.

The whole idea of the healing properties of relics may seem foreign to Protestant theatre-goers who haven't considered Acts 19:12, but Catholics will take it all in stride, even as they squirm over the "selling" of blessings. But for anyone who can just relax and enjoy the play, Incorruptible is an interdenominational laugh fest that will even appeal to the heathens in the house.

I love plays that are irreverent, because the foibles of the faithful are nearly always amusing. We behave the worst and the silliest when we take ourselves too seriously, and especially when we imagine that the end justifies the means. But amidst all the holy high-jinks of Incorruptible is the pervasive sense of God's mercy, compassion and grace. The reality of the miracles is never disputed, even when their material source is highly doubtful.

The comedy has a happy ending that only God himself could have orchestrated.

Firehouse Theater's production of Incorruptible plays through May 9. Call 303-562-3232 or visit online at www.firehousetheatercompany.com for information and reservations.