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Godspell Provides Energetic Performance

Expect Vigorous, Moving and Intense Show

by Jessica Rosenberg

It works. It really does. You may be skeptical, as I was, about the idea of a musical about the life of Jesus, culled from the Gospel of Matthew. Remember: Andrew Lloyd Webber did it. Fortunately Godspell predates him .

Here's an auspicious directorial debut from sophomore Mary Schneider, who, like most Oberlin directors, dares really big things. She's set the show as a circus, filled with sights, sounds, spangles and singing. There's a lion (sophomore Allison Moon), an Indian (Ginny Strong who moonlighted as the musical director) and a clown (junior Stephen Clink). Then there's first-year Will Baldwin as a top-hatted ringmaster Jesus, complete with rainbow socks, suspenders and a Superman t-shirt.

If anything, there's too much directorial vision: too much side patter, too much backing band and just too much sensory experience to take in the central message until it's almost too late. The cast ran a high-octane production, since everybody had to be on stage every minute. They were aided by sophomore Ni'Ja Whitson's vigorous choreography. It can be forgiven for lapsing into the banal once in a while (sign language, anyone?).

Godspell is pure action and it's hard to coordinate so many bodies in so many similarly exuberant and similar-sounding songs. The music itself (major influence: the folk mass), recalls another recent Oberlin production, Hair, and the show has the same kind of free-flowing structure, with parables from Jesus melding into full-company numbers melding into the story of the Passion.

Pacing and staging problems marred the second act, which lost some of its impact as Jesus is persecuted and eventually condemned, and didn't regain it until the last possible chance. Even in a longish show, Schneider should have risked slowing down scenes like the Last Supper and those in Gesthemene, as evidenced by how well it worked with "By My Side."

Every member of the cast had a moment to shine. Among the top-notch singers were Strong, who brought sweetness to the show's best-known number, "Day by Day," and Baldwin, who was at his best at his last, on the cross. Junior Lisl Walsh was the original Broadway Belter as Mary Magdalene, suffering through a lazily conceived "Turn Back O Man" as best she could. And I had no idea that Moon did drugs, but after her performance in several roles turned her molecules into pure energy, I want to know what she's on and where she's getting it. Clink had a less-successful turn as an unfortunately drowned-out Judas Iscariot, as did overheated sophomore Hanna Dorn.

The best overall performance belonged to first-year Laura Kepner-Adney, who has a lovely singing voice and a good acting presence as well. With the combined power of so many (thank God) tuned voices, the group numbers were the stars. The whole was definitely more than the sum of its very talented parts.

When it comes right down to it, do I think it was a good idea to de-emphasize the Christianity of this most Christian of musicals? I do not. There is just something wrong with hearing Mary Magdalene say "C'mere Will, I got something to show ya." The show had a solid production concept behind its universal approach, but when the body of a truly good man is carried off stage, and his followers realize that it's not important whether he lives again but whether his ideas do, it transcends attempts at universality. A great Christian show makes us heretics a little bit sorry, and that's what this Godspell gave us.

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T H E   O B E R L I N   R E V I E W

Copyright © 2001, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 129, Number 13, February 9, 2001

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