TravelingLight is a series of vignettes about Jesus’ life told in “ordinarylanguage.” As the play opens, we see Atwood in silhouette against asunset-colored backdrop. He shares the stage with two stools and a large trunk.He sifts through the trunk until he finds a fisherman’s coat and knit cap. Thushe becomes Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples. Peter (a longshoreman with a Brooklyn accent) describes biblical stories in plain,workingman’s language. The dialogue is humorous, such as when Peter refers toanother apostle as “Jimmy” (James). In order to maintain the show’s lighttouch, Atwood becomes other comical characters. Again, he heads to the trunk for more props. In seconds, hebecomes Levi, a geeky tax collector; an impoverished, elderly Jewish widow; aNorwegian; and a stereotypical American tourist on a trip to the Holy Land. This guise includes a loud Hawaiian shirt, adorky hat and binoculars. Elsewhere in the show, there are a few words fromHerod as a Mafia boss, who reluctantly orders the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Atwood is mostlyconvincing in these incarnations. But more importantly, he seems to make aconnection with the audience.
Atwood, a graduate of UW-Milwaukee’s acting program,co-founded Acacia Theatre Company in 1980.
The 90-minute show loosely recounts episodes fromthe Book of Mark. Since some of the show’s vignettes last only 20 seconds orso, the audience needs to be familiar with the characters that appear in thischapter of the Bible. Atwood succeeds in making the Bible’s legendary figures“come alive” for modern audiences. At times TravelingLight gets a bit goofy (one character calls Jesus on his cell phone), butmaybe that’s the point. Atwood wants to make the audience laugh as well asthink.
Acacia Theatre’s Traveling Light continues at the Todd Wehr Auditorium at Concordia Universitythrough Nov. 8.
