Honk If You Are Jesus.
 From plays about cloning to large robotic 'creatures' performing with dancers, to real time projection screens and operas about air travel, there's a theme writ large over this Festival which seems to indicate science and technology are major aspects in our lives.
This is certainly true in the case of State Theatre's offering, a stage adaptation of Peter Goldsworthy's novel 'Honk If You Are Jesus', directed by Martin Laud-Gray, a bleak comedy about a world where a scientist sets out to clone the extinct Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) and becomes embroiled in an attempt to bring on the Second Coming by replicating Jesus.
Is this the sign of a brave new world?
"Together we've come up with something that we think will really work, and it is [working]," says Laud-Gray of Goldsworthy's involvement in turning his novel into a stage play. "He's not afraid to push a few sleeping sacred cows over in his writing. I've mixed a metaphor, haven't I? Mix your metaphors and create a new way of thinking," he laughs.
"I'd read a lot of his short stories and they're really funny, and I read a couple of novels and the one I couldn't stop thinking about was 'Honk...' because it just seemed so topical. And also because it was critiquing the authority of science, technology and religion, and those things now are even hotter topics."
Emergency sirens hail in the background as we sip coffee and consider the changes in our world - since events such as '9-11'... "it puts all that to the test, really, this story," and agrees with me when I suggest the pivotal issue is that of the separation of the powers of church and state. The concept seems almost accepted as a dead one. "Isn't it?" he breathes. "You never hear of it any more.
"In the last ten years I've seen a much more conservative turnaround in this country, reflected in so many ways. But equally, we can't rely on science totally in case we get it wrong. Scientists alone aren't necessarily capable of showing us where we're going... whether it's them versus each other or whether the two things are becoming more the same is one of the issues the play deals with. But this is an issue for now."
Do we question science less? I think not, but apparently we question other things less... I'm thinking of Brendan Nelson adopting the in principle idea of teaching Intelligent Design in schools.
Such is the background to 'Honk If You're Jesus', wherein a researcher in a dead-end job is recruited by a fundamentalist 'think-tank'. Played by Caroline Mignone, Professor Mara Fox has, according to Laud-Gray "been stuck in a rut doing the commonplace research stuff, and an offer is made to her with an unlimited budget."
Laub makes the point that ethics always lags behind research, and that there's a lot of money poured into some of these research areas; money which is paid to achieve results.
"The play doesn't necessarily take sides, I think. These questions bubble to the top and even the agendas between the scientists compete as they realise what each of them are up to. It becomes very blurred," he says with a studied understatement.
As we discuss the form of the play, Laud-Gray is careful, hesitant even, avoiding giving too much away.
"Novels tend to have a lot of dialogue and it's hard to incorporate all of that in a play," he steers me. "There's some direct address, not much... to try and bolster Mara Fox's inner thoughts. We haven't just told a chronological story, because the playing with time is a central theme to all of this. And Mary Moore's design is a striking feature because it has motifs of science and religion in lots of ways."
In particular, he seems thrilled with the way they've been able to compress the action of a novel into less than two hours on stage... painting the scene for the audience by showing video of some of the medical procedures on a big screen at the back of the stage.
I cut to the chase. In the play do we get to see Jesus Mk II?
He laughs out loud.
"I'm not saying," he says firmly. "The thing with this cloning idea is that it's done from relics, which date back to that time, and which are assumed to be Jesus...
"It's fraught with error," he offers me as a possibility, and smiles broadly.
Alex Wheaton
 | 'Honk If You Are Jesus' plays at the Odeon Theatre (Norwood) until Sat 18 March. |
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