The butterfingers angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the nut & the slaughter of 12 hit carols in a pear tree Book

Something I never expected in my life was to write a five star review for a Christmas Pageant but Gibson's modernist take on the traditional Christmas play is poignant, sharp, and somehow still reverent without ever being preachy. He creates a multi-faceted play where each of the principals (Mary, Joseph, the Angel of the Lord) is a complex human being, and his twist at the end, stolen from Ovid, elevates the play from mere Christianity to a more universal meditation on the miraculous and the unexpected. He turns this very familiar story into an exploration of the mythology of our lives, our belief that we control what happens to us and that we matter, while still imploding the pessimism of the post-modern era that maintains we are powerless and meaningless. Excellent dialogue and a kind of poverty/small town aesthetic makes for a highly producible and castable show, with fine roles for men, women, and children. The only thing that doesn't work is the title, which doesn't exactly promise the high quality play you're about to engage with… but then maybe that's the point? Everything about Gibson's play is more than it initially seems.