An autistic priest and a dog walk into a bar
Okay I laughed a lot AND I cried. Can we be weirdos and feel God’s love and be okay? Happy even? Yes is the definitive answer in this raw, hilarious and heart-piercing piece. Take your heart and your mind to this show. You will be glad you did.
great show. welcome to Vancouver, Rilla (the service dog). interesting storytelling that compelled into the show.
Great show! Honest, funny, heartfelt, and a cute dog. He slowly peels back the layers of who he is. IF youre looking for a well put together show that hums along at a good pace...go! Only complaint is that Rilla didnt sit with me but we chatted and all good now.
Loved this youth group! A great neurodivergent romp through Green Gables, the radical love of Jesus, and enough talk of your parents having sex to traumatize you (but good for them if they are still having sex.) Can’t recommend this show enough, it’s a must see this festival!
Great show. Dog was very well behaved and the artist was amazing. Great story, funny and informative. Thank you. Enjoyed your show
You preach, brother!
The premise of Jean-Daniel Ó Donncada’s solo show is that we’re attending a meeting of the St. Steven’s Youth Group. It’s led by Ó Donncada, a real-life Presbyterian minister, who’s also very smart and very funny.
At one point, Ó Donncada shows a slide of a Venn diagram about the overlaps between three categories that identify him: gay, autistic, and French Canadian. Then he jumps up, taps the sweet spot in the middle of the diagram, and shouts, “Speedos!”
That joke is attached to substantial info: like a lot of autistic folks, Ó Donncada experiences sensory hypersensitivity. For him, baggy swim trunks are torture, but Speedos are just fine, thanks. And that’s one of the fundamental reasons we go to the theatre, right? To imagine ourselves into the lives of other people, to expand our capacity for love.
And that’s the gorgeous thing about An autistic priest and a dog walk into a bar: it’s a bracingly rigorous celebration of human variety.
Ó Donncada, who studied divinity at Yale and Harvard, defies religious sex-shaming: “If it feels good, thank God!”, he says — and “think about the word good very deeply.”
Partly thanks to the broad sweep of the material, there isn’t a slack moment: much to the delight of my gender-nonconforming heart, Ó Donncada manages to weave in his obsessions with Anne of Green Gables and Little Women.
And he allows himself to be vulnerable. The putdown TMI is bullshit, he says. Use it and you’re really saying, “I have a problem with the truth.”
This guy deserves a sell-out run.