By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

You've got your proverbs, your parables, your miracles.

You've got many, many pop culture references: Spam, pro wrestling, suburbia, the Discovery Channel, Riverdance, The Web, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Fundamentalists (most of them punchlines).

And you have even more references to the manly sexual organ, in the spirit of the Farrelly brothers and Adam Sandler, but more lame.

In short, you have the work of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, in this case The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), now in a holiday run in Playhouse in the Park's Shelterhouse.

The Reduced guys who write these things (they have abridgements of Shakespeare, American history, great literature) know their audience, and they hit on a no-miss formula a long time ago.

You have three guys, in this case Jeffrey Kuhn (he plays the synthesizer and leads the musical numbers); Greg McFadden, who get to play the women of the Bible; and Todd Cerveris, whose character has a Noah fixation. More on that later.

They are all hard-working and amiable as they shamelessly deliver groaners that haven't been dusted off since the heyday of the Catskills comics; showcase an impressively nutso collection of props; and blast through the Old and New Testaments.

They are put through their paces by Bible co-author Reed Martin. He has inserted any number of Cincinnati references, from five-ways to Pete Rose to the Bengals' big 2002 season.

Audience Abuse is a big part of every Reduced Shakespeare show and the biggest laughs by far on opening night Thursday were awarded to the brave souls who, two-by-two, came down from their seats to enact the animal inhabitants of the ark. Bravo to all of them, they threw themselves into the proceedings and outwitted their captors.

I've said this before but it bears repeating. Comedy is subjective. We all know what's tragic; what's funny is a matter of opinion.

Bible is neatly done and well-performed, but if you are one of those rare Americans who don't storm the multiplex to catch Shallow Hal and Jackass, chances are for you The Bible will be Purgatory.

For you, I think I can promise a fine time at, say, Frog Princess at Ensemble or Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol at Cincinnati Shakespeare.

The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), through Dec. 31, Playhouse in the Park Shelterhouse, 421-3888.