Blasphemy!

After lampooning Manpower, Inc. in Temp Slave and corporate excess in the critically lauded Walmartopia, husband-and-wife collaborators Catherine Capellaro and Andrew Rohn have widened their gaze and turned it skyward to take on the biggest boss of them all. Their newest production, Blasphemy! An Unholy Trinity Of Musical Comedies, satirizes fundamentalist Christians, creationism, and general intolerance. It opens Friday night at the Bartell Theatre, with proceeds going to benefit the venue. Decider spoke with Capellaro about disco, singing fish, and what kind of music is played in hell.

Decider: How much of a jump creatively was it to go from writing about Walmart to writing about religion?
Catherine Capellaro: It was pretty easy, actually. Walmart gave us true-life things that were scarier and weirder than anything we could make up, and the same is true for the Christian right. I felt even less inclined to approach it with any sense of realism, though. The pieces we’re doing are impressionistic and silly, and that’s fun. I’m not a practicing Christian, and Andrew and I were a little shocked to find polls that show more than 50 percent of Americans completely reject all scientific explanations for evolution. It was a topic that had a lot of juice for us.
D: Do you feel any guilt satirizing Christians?
CC: Satirizing Walmart was super fun because they’re so giant and gratifying to make fun of. I don’t feel any guilt about the new shows, but I also want people to know we’re not against Christianity. I wouldn’t want people to stay away knowing we don’t pull punches, but Andrew especially is a spiritual guy, and there’s some real soul-searching stuff in our re-imagining of the paradise story. That one is really about Adam’s certainty versus Eve’s questioning.
D: Are your shows inspired by specific events, or a more general desire to explore these topics?
CC: It’s kind of a combination of both, but because we’re a husband and wife team it has to be a topic both of us can really get behind. Our explorations are deep; for instance, right now our house is filled with books about Christianity, right-wing Christianity, Richard Dawkins, and evolution. But any idea has to be one that can hold our attention for years, and with religion there’s so much there. It has to do with the way we operate in the world, while it also has much potential for music and fun and silliness.
D: Is there a reason you’re drawn to musicals?
CC: We’ve hit upon a form where we feel like we can get away with more, because there’s a way that music helps things go down easier. I think it brings a lightness of spirit.
D: How much are you trying to make people laugh, and how much are you trying to educate?
CC: I certainly don’t mind if people just come to have a good time. We all need that, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But the journalist and educator in me does hope people come away with a little more than something that’s purely entertainment. We work hard at that, because I really detest heavy-handed writing and theater. But that often depends a lot on your perspective. Some reviewers thought Walmartopia was terribly heavy-handed.
D: Each show you’ve done takes on a successively larger topic. Do have a need to keep broadening your scope?
CC: I did feel that need with Walmartopia. When we wrote Temp Slave, Manpower, Inc. was the biggest employer in the world, and I’d done that kind of work, so it was a topic that hit home. By the time we wrote Walmartopia, I felt like Walmart was taking over the world, and I still kind of do. And fundamentalism—not just fundamentalist Christians—is threatening the world right now. So I don’t know how much bigger to get, actually. [Laughs.]
D: Will a person have to be steeped in the Bible’s stories to enjoy Blasphemy?
CC: No, there will be plenty to enjoy from whatever perspective a person comes from. There will be special treats for someone who understands George W. Bush’s relationship with God, for example, but the play about evolution is really a farcical romp through the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are having some pretty serious conversations, but there’s a singing fish who has legs and is educating Eve about evolution. There will be enough joy and silliness so that the show will have a wide appeal. And I think kids will enjoy it. Kids with tolerant parents, at least.
D: In the second play, you equate disco music to purgatory. What kind of music would be playing in hell?
CC: Andrew is actually going to write a medley that’ll be performed by Satan and her sidekick. It’ll involve a polka called “Don’t Touch My Kielbasa” and a country song called “Honky Tonky Honky.” It should be really fun. And actually, in that play, the premise is that there’s a classical choir director who’s stuck in purgatory, and his choir will only disco. And him accepting disco is his ticket out of purgatory, but he doesn’t know that.
D: After the off-Broadway success of Walmartopia, do you feel pressure to live up to heightened expectations?
CC: Sometimes I have, but I felt like it was really important in the process not to get ahead of ourselves. It took us a while to get back on our feet and create something imperfect, which is all you can create. Two of these three shows were originally blitzes, which means they were written in the wee hours when we’re basically stretching our minds as far as they can go. So it’s really an exercise in being able to show our warts. Part of our process has been rediscovering the joy of theater and community, and finding that it’s not all about production values and slickness. The tickets aren’t $65, so people should be able to come and enjoy a really great Madison-scale spectacle without us having to worry about where it’s going to sell, and whether it’s commercially viable. It’s actually been kind of a relief.