The Jerusalem Syndrome – 20 December 2023

The Jerusalem Syndrome examines the strange (but real!) phenomenon of people who travel to Israel and are so moved by spirituality that they forget who they are and believe themselves to be biblical figures. In addition to drawing the parallel between modern people and biblical ones, this show also tacitly acknowledges the similarities of modern and biblical people alike to psychiatric patients. Whether it’s expecting someone you love to change when they’re not capable of it, finally gaining the courage to grow up and be a leader, or not understanding how generosity can be crazy when taken too far, The Jerusalem Syndrome makes you smile and laugh at these tales that go back as far as they can go—tales that didn’t make any more sense then than they do now.

The story ratchets up the absurdity. The show feels significantly less cliché (and a lot funnier!) if you have a little bit of Old Testament and New Testament knowledge. There are moments that need no explanation—Jesus, for example. Yet there are also many less obvious biblical references that heighten the enjoyment. Some of these modern contextualizations and parallels are interesting to think about. For example, how Sarah must have felt about Abraham always talking to G-d instead of her. The casting of Moses as a lost tour guide with no leadership skills was hilarious—wanting to do your best at something you’re not sure you can do is very relatable.

While I was not a fan of the nurse character, I do think it was interesting to portray her as crazy as well. After all, medical employees are also subject to the human condition—it’s a bad day indeed when a doctor loses all of his patients, and though Dr. Ben Zion’s reactions were perhaps the closest to a range of normal, he also had dismissive, semi-elitist moments that indicated his unique touch of craziness.

When talking about craziness in The Jerusalem Syndrome, I’m less focused on the comedic definition of absurdity and more focused on what happens when we model our lives on the Bible but the Bible has just as many contradictions and twists and turns as we do. Toward the end, the priest says that we would not recognize Jesus if he came back to Earth—we would lock him up for insanity. Though not a Christian myself, I do think that anyone who showed up on the scene right now touting kindness and generosity and freedom and fairness and brotherly love would, in fact, be laughed at and taken advantage of for naivety. What does that say about how far people have evolved from biblical times, and are we going forwards or backwards?

This show made me laugh. It was light as a feather, witty, and fun. But it also made me wonder about this craziness, this madness that has been such a prominent part of theatre history since the Ancient Greeks. From the beginning, theatre has a tendency to exaggerate humanity in ridiculous ways to point out something that’s wrong with society. Have we lost that element of theatre in all the minutia of what we can and cannot do in our modern day? Maybe we should stop and ask for stage directions. Or just direction in our lives?

I attended this performance on a free ticket from Show-Score.