Most Fabulous Story Ever Told: And Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach Paperback – 1 Jul 2000

Paul Rudnick's amazing new play "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told" pokes fun at anything and everything involved with religion. Covering everything from Buddhism to Judiasm to Catholicism to Mormonism to Atheism, Rudnick leaves no stone unturned and spares no expense with his humor.
Divided in two acts, the play covers quite a gamut in religious theology. The first act recounts the "true" Biblicial couple, Adam and Steve, their fall from grace because of Adam's curiosity, and eventually meeting another couple, Jane and Mabel. Together, they survive a hilarious recounting of the Great Flood, and an even more hilarious recounting of a rather effemiente Pharoah refusing to let his "people" go because of his infatuation with the Moses/Brad character. Brilliant.
The second act plucks these people out of the Old Testament, and places them in modern day New York City, at a Christmas party thrown by Adam and Steve. The transition is seemless, due to Rudnick's ability to make it funny and believable. Rudnick leaves no stereotype unturned, from gay Santas to go-go boy elves, to a Public Access wheelchair bound lesbian rabbi (I'm not kidding) who steals the act. I rarely laugh outloud when reading a book, but I had tears in my eyes reading the second act. Excellent comedic writing!
Sometimes reading plays is very difficult because you need to see the action before you to appreciate attemmpts at humor. Not with this story. With Rudnick's copious stage directions, the entire play was acted out in my imagination very easily.
Rudnick's introduction frames the play quite nicely, assuring us everything religious was up for being a target in his play. If you are easily offended by religious humor, I suggest you stay away from this play. But if you believe in a God with a rich sense of humor, or believe in reading a funny, funny play, I cannot recommend this play highly enough!

This book is completely readable and accessible as literature, even if you don't like theatre. Witty, funny, incisive and insightful, this is an excellent work that takes religion and turns it on its ear. While somewhat superficial, it's superficial in the same vein as Jeffrey (Rudnick's masterpiece). Rudnick takes the light and "flitty" stereotype of American homosexuality and uses it as a rapier to skewer his target--in this case, religion in all its forms.
While the subject matter makes it unlikely that the deeply faithful will read it (Adam and Steve? That's a homophobic bumper sticker for Heaven's sake), neither the premise nor the work itself is anti-faith or even anti-Christian. It does not answer the eternal Questions, but it will leave you with a different (and incredibly valuable) new framework in which to ask them.
A delightful read, and I'd love to see it on stage.

This is a play in two parts.

The first is a satirical look at the Christian creation myth, homosexual style. The second is a mostly serious look into a family of gay people (the same characters) in New York City during Christmastime who are still trying to come to terms with their faith(s).

It is a very difficult play to pull off, as the two parts are very disjunctive and involve a lot of skill from the actors to pull off, plus a real understanding of it from the director... and neither productions I've seen of this play have had such full coherency. It's difficult because it underminds its own theme. It seems to be an essay on the fact that "We can never really know", and yet it goes in directions that doesn't seem reasonably needed (some of the Ark scenes, for instance).

It also focuses a lot on homosexuality and homosexual characters and their approach to life and the like (this play has some very un-PC moments, along with some pretty graphic nudity, even for a movie much less a live show), yet they seem to balance precariously between the stereotypical gay and the less one-dimensional gay. It muddles the dialog and causes some pretty crazy interpretations each time it's produced.

Thus, it is a project that must be approached delicately. It still has some really great dialog and is very funny, especially during the first half, but it's a little thick (not deep) and takes a lot of sorting out.

--PolarisDiB

I'm ordering the script because I just saw " ...Fabulous..." on stage at the Trustus Theatre in Columbia SC and haven't laughed so hard in ages -- gotta have the lines in front of me now. Maybe it's because I'm in the religion "business" that the lines fascinate me - I don't think Rudnick intends for us to get overly theological about all this - but his extraordinary wit pokes fun at, challenges, debases and denigrates, a plethora of idiotic crap we have to put up with everyday in the name of religion. Blasphemy and sacrilige are not subjects he can be called guilty of. Humor, rhythm and flow of language he's guilty of, and it makes super theatre.
GO SEE IT somewhere - or convince your local theatre enterprise to book it. It sold out a dozen or more performances here (yes, in the Bible belt...)