I knew I was in for something wonderfully wacky when I walked into Poems for God to find Canadian clown Victoria Watson Sepejak being pummeled by their audience with bean bags to the strains of “Like a Virgin.” Dressed in a yellow parka and dragging a sled, they wait in the snow for their father, who conveniently resembles a willing audience member. A silly song and dance, some slow-motion shushing, and a few selfies later, Sepejak suddenly transforms from a squeaky-voiced boy into a halo-wearing angel, who is leading a charge to save each and every woman on earth. To do so, they guide the audience into four poems peeking down though the heavenly clouds into daily life, starting with a sing-along deconstruction of Beauty and the Beast’s opening song that deliriously devolves into domestic violence and egg obsession.
That’s just the start of an increasingly surreal solo show with a serious purpose lurking beneath its specious surface. Sepejak boasts that they can uncannily impersonate any woman on earth [narrator voice: They can’t] but they can, just barely, roller-skate around the stage as a precocious pedophile hunter in a Hard Candy spoof that pushes the boundaries of what an unpaid audience volunteer should be asked to do. The show’s button-pushing climax comes with the “Village of Aborted Babies,” an ectopic utopia of itsy-bitsy plastic fetuses inside a cardboard box, and the finale act is an Enya-backed ode to skin lotion that Buffalo Bill would definitely want to put in the basket.
I saw an earlier incarnation of this show under the title Rivulus, which I thought was initially intriguing before turning tiresomely indulgent. Happily, director Isaac Kessler has helped greatly improve the show, making strategic cuts by ditching catty digs at female celebrities and other unnecessary distractions, while strengthening its momentum and impact. Deadpan absurdism is a delicate line to walk, but Sepejak skips along it with devilish delight. They may not quite “save all woman” with their Free Willie finale, but anyone who insists feminism is inherently humorless needs to attend this satirical skewering of sacred cows.
Poems for God
Blue Venue, Lowndes Shakespeare Center
60 minutes; 18 & Up
$15
Get tickets
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This article appears in May 14-20, 2025.