Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful, But the Virgin Mary Is So Delightful

New York has yet to have a sidewalk-sticking snow fall; but 'tis the season for sacred and secular jingles about Saint Nick and that other guy to permeate the city, as if they haven't already been pumping through shops since well before Thanksgiving. It's also time, according to a theatre critic for The New York Times, for Christmas stories to be "bisected, dissected, and disrespected all over town." Not mentioned in that review is Mimi Imfurst's own fantastically discourteous holiday show, Madonna's Christmas Celebration, which will be at The Laurie Beechman Theater here in New York again on Sunday the 13th. (The pictures of Mimi I took and include here are from her performance as Anne Frank at The Glammy Awards show because when I saw Celebration on its opening night, a recording informed us all that photography and recording devices were prohibited; but since I'm posting this on the first night of Chanukah, these Anne Frank shots are timely).

Celebration is a one-woman show (with artfully-placed felt animal cameos) starring the most famous virgin mother in the world, as channeled by Mimi. Despite the show's title, however, it's not a Madonna musical about her relationship with her own well-known Jesus, the Brazilian who made me buy W magazine one month, the one who now gets much more money DJ'ing than I do. Of course there are some great Madonna moments in the show, like Mimi singing "Hideous Manger" to "Beautiful Stranger." But Mimi's no-holds-barred storytelling parodies a range of musical sources--including a little ditty called "Fetus" sung to Michael Jackson's "Beat It"--to deliver (pun intended) a tale of motherly love, however self-serving the Virgin Mary's story turns out to be.

Celebration is Mary's not-so-subtle reminder that she should be the star of the season. After all, she's the ultimate "chosen one," the one chosen to bear far more than witness. As Mimi explains early on in the show, you may not understand that after a few numbers; but "it's going to hit you like Chris Brown after half a bottle of Hennessey." Celebration is a bawdy, clever recasting of an old story in the landscape of our decade, The Aughts, when religious leaders like Rick Warren, known for his doublespeak, don't seem to deter some people's fervent belief in faith-based understandings of reality, and celebrity is just a Balloon Boy stunt away. Or when becoming famous for being a housewife can lead to a "singing" career--well, a "song" that someone inexplicably performed twice in a row last night at Splash, a song that has infiltrated more of my Facebook friends' status updates than I care to recall. In these contexts, Mimi's Virgin Mary seems lovable--or, at least reality-show-ready.

Mimi's re-casting the Virgin Mary as a modern-day megalomaniac is but the platform from which she delivers her usually caustic and always hilarious repartee. If you've ever enjoyed Mimi at one of her nights here in New York City, you should definitely get your tickets for Sunday's show to revel in the holiday Celebration you need.

Mimi's already received hers: her own paragraph about "a sexual deviant dressed as the Virgin Mary" in a rant from Catholic League president William Donohue about the appalling number of raunchy Christmas plays. Donohue laments that he could not find any similar "disrespect" for Ramadan and explains that absence with the following insight: "Cowardice, of course, is a trademark of sissies." What? No similar research, Donohue, on "sexual deviants" "disrespecting" Chanukah? I guess Donohue reserves his discussion of us Jews for his brave elucidation of Hollywood, a city that he claimed is "controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it." Oh, he also said during the same visit to MSNBC's Scarborough Country on December 8th 2004 that "Hollywood likes anal sex." I guess ignorance, of course, is a trademark of Catholic League president media whores. Turns out that Dr. Donohue did more than take in good humor a South Park episode called "Fantastic Easter Special" that parodies him as a power-hungry, torture-supporting, and ninja-protected official of the American Catholic League who commandeers the papacy and locks up Jesus because they're both being "too soft." Apparently, he hung a still in his office from the episode with him wearing the Pope's mitre. Follow the link in this YouTube clip to watch the episode:

Next year, Mimi, I think your Celebration should be you channeling Donohue as Ebenezer Scrooge visited by the Ghost of the Virgin Mary Past, the Ghost of the Virgin Mary Present, and the Ghost of the Virgin Mary Yet to Come. Maybe he'll hang an autographed still from your show in his office.