Godspell Review

The most revealing moment in the first Broadway revival of “Godspell,” a musical by Stephen Schwartz (now best-known for “Wicked”), may come after Jesus stands up on the piano, mike in hand, announcing the intermission and inviting the audience to the stage. First, this is a move reminiscent of the recent revival of “Hair,” except it occurs at intermission rather than at the end of the show, which would have been awkward since Jesus at that point has just been crucified. Second, we are not invited to dance with the cast on the stage but to partake of some wine, which is set out in little plastic cups as it might be in a church, helping the show’s audience feel even more like its congregation. Third, the wine is really grape juice, which seems a metaphor for this production, which is less intoxicating than sweet – to some tastes, sickly sweet.

“Godspell” is beneath “Wicked,” literally – it is playing in the Circle in the Square Theater, which is underneath the Gershwin, where Schwartz’s other musical has been luring them in for eight years. In its original Broadway production, “Godspell” lasted a little more than a year – respectable, surely, but nothing like the five years it played Off-Broadway, nor the phenomenon it has become since. In the four decades since a 22-year-old devout Episcopalian and theater student named John-Michael Tebelak conceived it for his master’s thesis, “Godspell” has been transformed.

Tebelak wanted to write a joyful piece derived from the Gospels, a playful antidote to the traditional take on religion as exemplified by a boring Easter service he attended. The parables that are narrated and re-enacted in storybook fashion in “Godspell” come directly from The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and the lyrics were taken mostly from the Bible and traditional hymns, with some additional lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, who was hired when he was himself just 23 to compose 14 new songs.

Many critics in the early 1970’s saw the stage show (and subsequent film) not as religious but as countercultural– “irreverent, wacky, and endearing” (Roger Ebert), “less a celebration of the life and teachings of Christ than it is a celebration of theater, music, youthful high spirits….” (Vincent Canby). (Not every mainstream critic was entranced. When it opened at the Cherry Lane Theater in 1971, Clive Barnes wrote in the Times: “Personally, I found the whole premise rather nauseating…” He also called it “naïve and platitudinous.”) The very style of music – an eclectic mix that features rock and pop, and includes the break-out song “Day By Day” — might have carried an almost political message at the time.

But a guitar is no longer alien in the pews of America; it is the norm. What was called irreverent is now….reverent. As Mark Oppenheimer, Beliefs columnist, put it recently in a story about the history of “Godspell,” the musical now “feels an awful lot like church.”

It also feels like amateur theater. There have been so many productions of the musical that it is almost rare to find somebody who hasn’t seen or been in one. As an article on Godspell memories points out: “Madonna, Lady Gaga, Jeremy Irons, Queen Latifah, Donna Summer, Paul Shaffer and Jon Hamm all have “Godspell” somewhere on their résumés.”

Musical Theatre International, the licensing agent for the musical, lists 107 current or forthcoming productions of “Godspell” around the country, mostly in religion-oriented high schools, but also in places like the Philadelphia United Methodist Church in Fort Mill, South Carolina and the Missoula Children’s Theater in Missoula, Montana.

Given how widespread the productions of “Godspell,” does it make sense to have one on Broadway too? That is the calculation of “The People of Godspell,” the people who invested relatively small amounts to get this show mounted in what lead producer Ken Davenport coined as a pioneering exercise in theatrical crowd-funding. But to me, the simplicity and the familiarity of “Godspell” makes it best-suited now for production in a church or school or a children’s theater, where it is an expression in and of a community, and won’t set theatergoers back $125 per seat.

It seems almost churlish to point out how corny the jokes and routines are: Jesus tells his disciples he used to read feet, the way other people read palms, but he quit “because their future stunk.” There are similarly silly updated pop culture and topical references – a mention of Facebook, a mild spoof of Donald Trump – all suitable for eight-year-olds.

The ten performers in the cast are talented, attractive and in good voice, and many have appeared in shows with the audience demographic that the “Godspell” producers are evidently targeting: Glee, Spring Awakening, American Idiot, the Electric Company, Hannah Montana, Rent, and yes, Hair. The clown makeup is gone, but the playful mismatched costumes and the youthful high spirits remain. Hunter Parrish, as Jesus, manages quickly to erase our association with him as Silas, the drug-dealing, sexually promiscuous older son on “Weeds.” But he replaces that image with a bland Jesus that could be a character in an Archie comic book. Other members of the multi-ethnic cast are more distinctive, Wallace Smith as John/Judas (the only other actor who plays specific named characters), is a particular stand-out. Each cast member gets his or her own song, backed by the rest of the cast, and these are hard to fault. The child-like nature of all the material around the songs, however, restricts the actors to a narrow range.

The theater-in-the-round of Circle in the Square is also restrictive, with the spare set being most inventive in its use of a series of different-sized trap doors on the stage. One large one opens up to provide the water that Jesus walks on and John falls in. Later, many little trap doors open up to reveal individual-sized trampolines on which the cast members happily bounce up and down.

Those who already love Schwartz’s score will probably bounce up and down with them, aided by a band that is cleverly sprinkled throughout the audience. Those who performed in the show in middle school might be tempted to sing along. Regular theatergoers, however, are likely to continue to try to get tickets to “The Book of Mormon,” the anti-“Godspell.”

Follow Jonathan Mandell on Twitter at @NewYorkTheater

Godspell
At Circle in the Square
Conceived and originally directed by John-Michael Tevelak
Music and new lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
Directed by Daniel Goldstein
Scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Miranda Hoffman, lighting design by David Weiner, sound design by Andrew Keister. Choreographed by Christopher Gattelli.
Cast: Hunter Parrish (Jesus), Wallace Smith (John and Judas), Uzo Aduba, Nick Blaemire, Celisse Henderson, Morgan James, Telly Leung, Lindsay Mendez, George Salazar, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle.
Runing time: 2 hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission
Tickets: $125. Premium up to $199. Pre-show lottery: $30