Captain of His Soul

Comments (0) By Susan Froyd Thursday, Aug 19 2010

Seth Lepore, a Naropa grad now living in Vermont, has an adorable face and the kind of richly extemporaneous voice it takes to be a good performance artist. The guy can definitely talk, but he can also delight, making his new work, Losing My Religion: Confessions of a New Age Refugee, a certain standout at the Boulder International Fringe Festival. Based on Lepore’s confusing experiences with his own spiritual development, the show opens at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Wesley Chapel, 1290 Folsom Street in Boulder, and continues for five more performances through August 28.

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“A lot of people who practice this stuff scare the hell out of me, so I decided to do a monologue based on characters that are real, made up or a combination of the two,” Lepore says. “Like there’s the ‘Law of Attraction’ Lady, who’s a sex ed teacher (she came back from another piece I did), and there’s the guy who sells yoga pants, and another one who runs the Weekend Warrior Retreat for men.

“It’s both that and me playing myself: You see me going through Catholicism and through Buddhism at Naropa and some other more esoteric forms of spiritualism. But besides being just funny, I’m also very earnest. I talk about my experiences and the pain I’ve gone through, of being told, ‘Go to hell!’ by a priest. I try to show all the guilt and shame tactics and the commodification of spirituality, that whole money ‘ching-ching’ thing."

The show isn’t offensive, he promises; rather, it acts like a mirror. “I’m not trying to get people to walk out of the room,” he adds. “I want people talking about whether their faith is what they really believe in. I hope to create a dialogue. I’m not going to say what does or doesn’t work for other people.”

Tickets are $10 to $15 (or two-for-one tonight only); go to www.boulderfringe.com for showtimes and reservations
Thu., Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 20, 9:30 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 21, 5 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 22, 8 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 27, 9 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 28, 8 p.m., 2010