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FREEHOLD, IOWA (AP). Pastor Jerry Ham was found dead on a cross this morning by a cleanup crew at Landover Baptist Church's "It's the Christians' Turn to Have a Coliseum" colosseum. The church, America's most expensive, issued a statement that the audience attributed Pastor Ham's increasingly blue, second act skin to "that crazy, over-the-top acting they do out in New York."
"He really nailed the role," said Pastor Deacon Fred, "but I think winding up dead on a cross is taking the whole 'What Would Jesus Do?' thing too far. I mean, we've had shows that killed, but this is the first time someone was killed in a show outside the main sanctuary."
Every weekend, Landover Baptist hosts the nation's most famous and expensive passion play. And it is a spectacle fit for a church with more seats than any NFL stadium and baptism choreography that has been shamelessly stolen by foreign pagans in countless Olympic Games' opening ceremonies. This year's show was no exception, with glamorous production numbers that would shame a Carnival cruise.
"I tell you," said Pastor Deacon Fred with pride, "When we get to that wonderful scene when all those bloodthirsty Hebrews are screaming for Pontius Pilate to kill Baby Jesus, you're not going to see that many snarling Jews outside of a Manhattan law firm. And our Jews dance! I tell you, when it comes to famous Passion Plays, those Huns in Oberammergau may have history, but we've got money. And, as any God fearing American can tell you, money trumps culture every time. Cause money can buy you a boatload of culture. For instance, we've paid for that oily little English fellow to write us some real humable tunes for the Apostles' big jitterbug number with the Marys."
Indeed, last year marked the introduction of a new Passion Play score exclusively penned for Landover Baptist by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Mr. Webber made significant changes to the story of Jesus' life, including the excising of Christ's monotonous character development and the parables that nobody follows anyway. These cuts allowed for the addition of a runway dance number by roller-skating camels and two instantly recognizable tunes that the audience felt as if they have heard a million times -- because, by the end of the second act, they had. The $3,450,000 production was a marvel of pageantry, stage engineering and animal husbandry, featuring 873 actors, a procession of 15 white elephants and a gold donkey carrying the Mother of Jesus, played by born-again actress Dyan Cannon. The only mishap was when a tap-dancing Mary Magdalene, played as a passive-aggressive extrovert by Kathy Lee Gifford, slid on a wet, sloppy mound in the middle of the stage and splattered the orchestra and several people in the $2,500 seats with warm, wet elephant feces.
"Well, last year was a problem when Kathy Lee fell on her butt and started laughing like a drunk whore just when we was fixing to get to the real serious part," recalled Mrs. Judy O'Christian. "And the dry cleaner never got all that dung out of my silk shift -- although I have to admit, that stuff did wonders for the condition of my hair. But at least no one died last year."
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A cast of almost 1,000 fills the stage at Landover Baptist for the scene when the Jews finally assume responsibility for killing our Savior.
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After reviewing the DVD of the performance (available free from Landover Baptist for a love offering of $1,200), it was clear to the police that the actor Pastor Jerry Ham died only moments before his character Jesus was schedule to pretend to die on stage.
"Girl, it was a little smidgen of a problem," recalls costumer Ronnie Tinahead, who had watched the performance from the wings.
"Oh, I know," recounts his roommate and show make-up artist Bruce Leatherbottom, "he was supposed to say our Lord's final words on the cross and we waited and waited. You could feel the anxiety in the audience; I almost snapped a Mabeline pencil in two! But we all just thought he'd fallen asleep. But I mean he-loo? He was dead!"
"Well, it was just as well," added Mr. Tinahead. "You can't believe the arguments we'd gotten from the Ladies of Landover over what Jesus' last words on the cross would be. The Bible has at least three versions and everyone had their favorite. Some of them were getting vicious about which one we would use. Some wanted 'Why Me have you forsaken me?' from Matthew. But some thought that was taking that whole Trinity schizoid thing way too far and they were lobbying for the simple 'It is finished' from John. But folks were worried the audience would hear that, think the show was over and leave. There was a lot of bad blood over that one line. Sister Taffy brought her megaphone and was ready to yell 'it's finished' if Jesus didn't do it her way. So, frankly, if he was going to pick any time in the play to stop breathing, that was a good choice cause Sister Taffy was right there in the front row."
"It is really sad that he had to die," observed Judy O'Christian. "Not Jesus -- He had to die so's I could get tons of cool stuff in Heaven. I mean Pastor Ham. You know I would never say an unkind word about a Sister in Christ. But I blame Betty. Yes, I do."
Several Landover Baptist members pointed the finger at Betty Bowers when asked what had cause the death of Pastor Ham. "I love Betty like I love my nonrepeating hand-printed Chinese wallpaper in my prayer conservatory," said Mrs. James Higgins, "but she is the most pretentious woman who ever walked the Earth. Well, accept for Gwyneth Paltrow – but people still pay attention to Betty. Last year's show was fabulous. Everyone loved it. But not Betty. She said Wayne Newton's lariat-wielding Jesus was an insult to the memory of some guy called Stanislavski and insisted that she be involved in the casting and direction of this year's show."
For this year's show, Mrs. Bowers had flown in her good friend Uta Hagen to act as director for the production. Ms. Hagen worked tirelessly with the tyros in the cast to allow them to become the characters they were playing. Recalls Mrs. Bobby Thompsonville, who was Mary's understudy: "Oye, by the second week of rehearsal, I started acting so Jewish, I was afraid they weren't going to let me in the fercockt country club!"
"Uta was amazing," adds Hulbert Harding, who played the Roman guard at the foot of the cross who lost his wristwatch to Mary in a game of dice. "Uta had us really feeling our roles. She told us to get lost in our characters and become whom we were playing. I put my phone on silent, even during the matinee. By performance day, I was so ready to murder Jesus. It was beautiful."
Indeed, it appears that the Roman actors became so immersed in their characters that they actually did kill Jesus in scene 32 of the five-hour production. The autopsy of Pastor Ham revealed acute toxicity of the liver, which was attributed to the 3 quarts of balsamic vinegar the Roman soldiers force-fed the actor while he was perched on the cross. Added Sergeant Lewis: "And the decision to use real nails certainly didn't help."
"Well, any time you do a production this big," said Pastor Deacon Fred, "you are going to have problems. Last year, it was a couple lap-fulls of elephant turds. This year, it was a Jesus that didn't -- couldn't -- rise from the dead. As anyone in show business or religion will tell you, it is hard to entertain and make box office. And we had 934 live actors this year! Well, 933."
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