Wednesday, October 04, 2006

A Hell of a Time: Les Freres Corbusier brings the controversial Hell House to New York City:

A woman undergoing a late-term abortion; a gay man dying of AIDS; a young woman losing her virginity. All of them are going to Hell, at least as depicted in Les Freres Corbusier's Hell House at Arts at St. Ann's. This theatrical event is modeled after the evangelical Hell Houses that were originally staged by Jerry Falwell in the 1970s and popularized by Pastor Keenan Roberts, who has written the script that is now performed in hundreds of Hell Houses across the country and is being used for the New York presentation.

Structured to resemble secular haunted houses, Hell Houses have proven extremely controversial. Roberts and his supporters claim that they are a useful, albeit unorthodox, conversion tool; his detractors charge that they are filled with misinformation and promote intolerance. Alex Timbers, artistic director of Les Freres Corbusier and director of the New York production, claims that the company is presenting its Hell House "faithfully, without a wink, and without irony."

3:30 PM