[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of On Earth as It Is in Hell, written and performed by Andrew Spink at Whitefire Theatre’s Solofest 2024.
On Earth as It Is in Hell is a very funny and highly entertaining solo show all about one man’s closely held perspective on the afterlife. It’s told rather like a lecture of sorts, with flip charts and analogies and incredibly well-thought-through and deeply researched background to the various historical myths and legends all about what we now commonly refer to as Hell.
Andrew Spinks is on a quest. A purposeful and well-organized labor of love to explain and therefore undo this weird and grossly overused Hell thing. I’m still capitalizing that word…just in case he’s wrong. He doesn’t think Hell is real you see, and while I’m currently inclined to agree with him, I think it only prudent to leave room for all possibilities…while looking over my shoulder a bit and spitting.
Along with Andrew, we journey back through time to the ancient Greeks, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. He expands on the theory of forgiveness and how that could possibly marry with anyone burning for all eternity. There’s also the problem of dinosaurs of course, not if they are in Hell as such, but if indeed they could have existed at all or did the devil conveniently hide a load of bones and mess with the carbon dating just to trick us? And then how does religion work at all if he didn’t? Ah yes, the eternal paradox of what came first, the devil or the dinosaur egg.
Like a feverish high school teacher, Andrew Spinks walks us through his own philosophy of good and evil, heaven and Hell etc, etc. with laser-like focus and very occasionally like a man possessed, if you’ll pardon the pun, he poses question after questions and then expertly eviscerates it.
More human-splaning than man-splaning. On Earth as It Is in Hell is punchy, energetic and hilariously true. Yes, he has only one perspective, but aren’t you a bit sick of a balanced argument to something that has no logical reason to have one? I’m all for everyone’s right to have an opinion, just as long as it’s not ridiculous…
I loved this show. Most solo shows are autobiographical, which is wonderful of course, but I have to admit that seeing a show that unapologetically riffs on religion and its fantastical relationship to science is refreshing, to say the least. On Earth as It Is in Hell is a Ted Talk, drunken-uncle at Thanksgiving hybrid with nuance and logic and full of very clever well executed jokes at the expense of dusty old books adapted from tattered old scrolls written by angry old men.
I gather Andrew Spinks and his On Earth as It Is in Hell will be at the San Diego Fringe Festival in May.
As well as in Seattle this summer. So if the West Coast falls into the sea, then we know who to blame.