Like other works that have dared to reinvent the story of Jesus Christ, Corpus Christi has generated controversy wherever it’s been performed. Whether the controversy is over whether the National Endowment of the Arts should fund such work (as with Piss Christ a few years ago, which had Jesus on the cross submerged in a glass of urine), or whether audiences should be “allowed” to view a slightly different interpretation of the story (as with the film The Last Temptation of Christ), people love to take sides, often not even having experienced the work in question. Last night, as I was waiting to be admitted into the theater for the opening night performance of this play, one that dared reimagine Jesus and his 12 disciples as gay men, I listened as an older usher talked to a friend. “Yes, I usually like to see everything in the (Pride) series. But not this, oh no, this is NOT my cup of tea.” I feel sorry for that woman, because not only is she missing out on one of the finest performances ever to be presented on a Bailiwick stage, but she is also missing out on a deeply religious story, one that’s all about faith, love for one’s fellow man without prejudice, and the “divinity” that lives within us all.

At the beginning of Corpus Christi, in a kind of theatrical prologue, we’re told that the story we’re about to see is a familiar one and that it holds no surprises. Indeed, anyone who’s ever had even the slightest indoctrination into the Christian faith knows the bare bones about Jesus’ life…the miracles, the teaching, the ultimate sacrifice. Playwright McNally holds true to this essential story. But what makes his play the subject of so much furor is the fact that he dares to cast the story of Jesus and his 12 disciples in a gay milieu. Yes, Jesus is gay. So is Judas, John the Baptist, Matthew, Philip and all the rest. Jesus is sexual. Jesus has doubts. Jesus gets angry. Jesus dances and sings with his disciples. In short, McNally presents Jesus as one of us. As another modern-day retelling of Jesus Christ once said, “He’s a man. He’s just a man.” And humanity is the thread that runs through McNally’s vision. McNally isn’t being irreverent, or worse, blasphemous, when he makes Jesus Christ a human being. He’s doing what the scripture tells us God was doing when he sent down his only begotten son to live among us. Jesus was never this ethereal being, but a human. And that was the point. Making him gay is just a device to underline his humanity and to demonstrate to us how he might have felt as an outsider. The parallels are there: the persecution, the confusion, the ridicule, and the pain.

Thank God Bailiwick (in conjunction with the Ulysses Theater Company), and director Stephen Rader, had the taste and reverence to make this a work of skill and resonance. The ensemble is uniformly excellent (with particularly outstanding work by Randy Goetz in the lead role), handling the humor and tragedy with astonishing skill and insight. It’s obvious in every minute of this first-rate production that director Rader realized what McNally realized: that, in order for the story of Jesus Christ to have relevance, it must be reinvented again and again, so that Christ’s message of love and tolerance can ring true for ever-changing, ever-new audiences.