Fool's Mass = From Dzieci Theatre = Directed by Matt Mitler = at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC = December 2023 = December brought one of my favorite NYC theater events — the 25th iteration of Dzieci Theatre’s production of Fool’s Mass . I saw this movable feast in a side chapel of the majestic Cathedral of St. John the Divine (that is, a side chapel itself the size of a small church). The production takes off from Marat/Sade , putting the lunatics in a sacred ambience and adding glorious irreverence. Ten or so actors play idiots — in the sense of “village idiots” — who’ve lost their priest and have to slug their way through a mass themselves. Dressed in colorless rags, almost all with caps and sporting dirty faces, they’re the picture of medieval bedlam. They give us masterful ensemble work, sometimes moving with the unity of a school of fish, sometimes freezing in lovely tableaux vivants . The iconography of religion indicates what the ersatz ceremony refers to: ther