By Nick A. Zaino III Globe Correspondent,March 20, 2019
Brett Johnson’s one-man show “Poly-Theist” is a story of faith and strength that follows an unusual path. Johnson grew up in an evangelical household, went to a religious school, and married his college sweetheart. That’s the “Theist” part. The story gets complicated five years into the marriage when they decide to see other partners. That’s the “Poly” part.
“The tagline version is that I was a married 21-year-old monogamous evangelical, and then I became the opposite,” says Johnson, 33, who brings the show to the Rozzi Square Theater Saturday and Nick’s Bar and Restaurant in Worcester on March 29. “I think it’s really about that trip and what I find on the way there.”
When he was growing up, it would have been hard for Johnson to imagine even having a relationship. It was difficult enough for him and his friends to sort out puberty without his religion teaching him that, as he says in the show, sex was destructive. He was starting to have questions even then. “It’s weird that violence was fine, sex was not,” he says, recalling a joke from his act. “Growing up, playing ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ if my dad walked in he’d be like, ‘Hey, you’d better not pick up that prostitute. But you hit her with your car . . . let me flip through Leviticus. I think we can find something.’ ”
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The straight and narrow path that, somehow, led to an open marriage