Ngofeen Mputubwele describes The Monkeypox Gospel as “a theatrical podcast.” His ambitious show examines his life at the time he was pitching an article to The New Yorker magazine about the monkeypox virus, and covers, among other things, his fear of revealing his queerness to his religious community, the friendship network he built in New York, his dating life, theories about Belgian colonialism’s culpability in the spread of both HIV and monkeypox, and long segments about opera and ballet.
Mputubwele’s voice radiates intimacy, warmth, humour, and an appealing vulnerability. His show is intercut with actualities from news items and interviews meant to enliven and further the story, but unfortunately, in the unforgiving acoustic of the stone upper arches of the Underbelly Cowgate venue, these are rendered largely unintelligible. Mputubwele appears to be aware of the worst of the difficulties – one segment is hilariously and effectively helped by hand-drawn subtitles on cue cards – but the problem runs throughout the show and is significant for a production relying so heavily on the audio experience.
As a storyteller, Mputubwele is abundantly charming, but the unruly tendrils of his tale seldom come together in ways that allow anything other than scattered glimpses of meaning. At one point, he plays an audio clip of an editor describing parts of his New Yorker article as “irrelevant” and striking them out. I think the intention was to portray him as insensitive to Mputubwele’s artistic vision and oppressive, but, by that point, my sympathies lay firmly with the editor.
I think one’s enjoyment of The Monkeypox Gospel will hinge largely on one’s openness to deeply personal, diaristic musings which – while very engagingly told – lack clear direction. The audience on the night I attended received the story rapturously. However, even they failed to recognise the end of the narrative, waiting expectantly in silence for more, until Mputubwele had to tell them, “…and that’s it.”
