Manchester’s annual LGBT arts festival, Queer Contact, has teamed up with the Royal Exchange Theatre to stage a site-specific performance of The Gospel According To Jesus Queen of Heaven in St Chrysostom’s Church Manchester.
Written and performed by legendary trans playwright, performer and poet Jo Clifford and directed by Susan Worsfold, thr award-winning playWritten and performed by legendary trans* playwright, performer and poet Jo Clifford and directed by Susan Worsfold, award-winning play is a unique and extraordinary show combining theatre with storytelling, spoken word and ritual, as familiar stories are reimagined by a transgender Jesus. The piece has been specially adapted for Queer Contact Festival and will be performed in the beautiful St John Chrysostom’s Church on Sunday 14 February at 3pm & 8pm.
Selected for the prestigious Made In Scotland Showcase in 2015, has been seen all over the world and adapted for a wide variety of locations, including a hotel room and a former anatomy lecture theatre at Edinburgh Fringe. This is the second time the piece has been performed in full in a Church and comes after a screening of a cinematic version of the play was shown as part of the Outburst Festival in Belfast.
Despite critical acclaim and support from a wide range of religious networks and churches the play has come under fire from fundamental Christian groups. Church leaders in Belfast used the conservative national daily Belfast Telegraph to call for the play to be banned in Belfast last November and 2009’s five-night run was met with 1,000 protesters from Christian groups outside the Tron Theatre and 750,000 bloggers protesting worldwide. The archbishop of Glasgow subsequently called Clifford’s vision of a transgendered Jesus ‘an affront to the Christian faith’. He never saw it.
Jo Clifford said: “When I wrote The Gospel I didn’t imagine it would be so controversial. Christianity is often used as a weapon against LGBT people to deny us our rights. I wanted to see how this could be justified by the source texts; and in “Jesus Queen of Heaven” make the simple point that Jesus never attacked us and assert our human rights to justice and respect.
The experience taught me that what I was doing was important and we continue to perform the piece all over the world because all this still needs to be said. Prejudice, oppression and injustice are suffered by just about every trans person everywhere in the world and the global struggle against oppression of LGBT people is profoundly connected to the wider struggle for women’s rights throughout the world.”
Jo is an award-winning playwright, translator, poet and performer, who has also worked as a journalist and academic. With plays like Losing Venice, Ines de Castro and Light in the Village, she helped establish the international reputation of the Traverse Theatre Company in the 1980s and is the author of over 70 works in every dramatic medium. Her work has been translated into many languages and has been performed all over the world and her adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations made her the first openly transsexual woman playwright to have her work performed in London’s West End. Jo is currently writing a joint commission with Chris Goode for the National Theatre of Scotland and her Every One will receive a new production at the Battersea Arts Centre this coming March. Last year her Aann Karenina was revived by the Royal Exchange.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS, QUEEN OF HEAVEN – Listings information
Written and performed by Jo Clifford.
Directed by Susan Worsfold.
Produced by Annabel Cooper.
Performance Times
Sunday 14 February
3pm & 8pm
Tickets
£13 / £7
Box Office: 0161 833 9833
On-line: www.royalexchange.co.uk/bookonline
http://www.royalexchange.co.uk/whats-on-and-tickets/the-gospel-according-to-jesus-queen-of-heaven
