Jeezus!
This review is from the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
This simultaneously cuddly and filthy musical two hander from London-based Latin American-centric Alpaqua Theatre Collective concerns Jesús, a sexually confused young man from Peru. Over the course of Jeezus! he acts as our guide to both the Latin American country’s extremely repressive police and social values, and also his own, very specific awakening.
Played by the show’s writer Sergio Antonio Maggiolo, Jesús is very clearly gay, something obvious to everyone but him. But as a confused yet pious adolescent he buries his feelings into his love for his near namesake, Jesus (the magic cross guy).
The plot skips around with cartoonish sweetness crossed with essentially blasphemous naughtiness - at one point the tender young Jesús tries to purge himself of impure thoughts by sodomising himself with the family’s large wooden crucifix.
Maggiolo plays Jesús with wide-eyed aplomb: it’s the fact they seem to be taking everything so deadly seriously that really makes Jeezus! work. Well, one of the things - the tunes are melodic and funny and as much as the show is very rude, there’s an old fashioned but surprisingly muscular Monty Python-ish streak of humour that keeps it ticking forward. Co-singer/performer Guido Garcia is great in a multitude of roles in Laura KIlleen’s production, from Jesús’s parents (his mum is a sweetie, his dad is basically a Nazi) to – dare I spoil it – the actual Jesus, who his namesake meets via...