Click here for our gallery of photos from the 2014 production
Written during Nero’s brutal persecution of the followers of “the way,” the Gospel of Mark was originally recited in its entirety by wandering storytellers to give courage to this community of quiet rebels, whose radical compassion threatened the status-quo. *mark is a solo performance that seeks to reclaim the original power and urgency of this ancient message.
Magis Artistic Director George Drance performs the entire Gospel of Mark telling the story as he imagines it was told to the early Christians. When *mark was performed at LaMaMa audience members who were not believers said that they could finally understand what it was about Christ that made people want to follow him. Those who were believers said that they heard the deeper message of the Gospel because, in hearing it from start to finish, the patterns, repetitions, and progression of Jesus' work of salvation became not only clearer to them, but also more vibrant when hearing it as a personal witness.
Author James Martin SJ called the performance "moving, creative, exciting, challenging, profound."
Journalist Alex Santora called it “a tour de force…smooth use of voice variation and inflection to shift from one character to the next. His movements made you believe Jesus was indeed walking on water.”