Captain Jack Harkness, Singing? In Godspell???
Last Wednesday night, as Porpoise and I were reading the bit from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus really lets the Pharisees have it for their hypocrisy (Matthew 23), I suddenly burst into, “You snakes, you viper’s brood!”, et cetera, from Godspell’s “Alas for You.” Thus was launched a whole evening of playing 30-second clips from various Godspell recordings as I tried to decide which to purchase to replace my old, long-gone tape (which, incidentally, was pilfered by a church choir director several years back). Poor Porpoise.
The end result was that I ordered the 1993 British version. It didn’t sound quite as dated as the original cast album (which I’m still quite fond of), but the vocalists could actually sing, unlike the ones in the more recent American revival album.
It arrived today, in record fast time for Amazon free shipping. So, as I’m looking at the liner notes, I see the name John Barrowman, and I think “Now why does that sound familiar?” Once again, IMDB comes to the rescue, and I see that John Barrowman is none other than Captain Jack Harkness from “Doctor Who” and “Torchwood.” On the CD, he does the lead part for “We Beseech Thee” (you can hear him in the 30-second snippet for this song!). Wonders never cease.
In the past few days, as I’ve been introducing Porpoise to Godspell, I’ve been trying to explain why I love it so much. In some ways, it really is a product of the seventies (the original featured the disciples as flower-children), and, as such, you would think its appeal would be limited. But I also remember seeing a community production in Little Rock when I was 12 years old that probably forever changed how I view theater and how I view Christian art.
The Little Rock production didn’t really have a 70’s feel—it was very well adapted to the then-current era and place. That’s one of the things that can be great about Godspell: if done well, if becomes incarnate in the culture where it’s performed, as Jesus became incarnate in 1st-century Galilee. But what I remember most about the performance is the effectiveness and simplicity of the way that Jesus called the disciples. As each one came to him, he greeted them with a simple hand gesture—a different one for each person—which they then repeated back to him. He Named them. Without words.
In church, on the stage, and on the page, I’m a sucker for the symbolic. Literal sorts of representations of the crucifixion of Christ (i.e., The Passion of the Christ) really don’t affect me much, in spite of the fact that I think that it’s important that the crucifixion and resurrection literally happened. But, tonight, as I listened to “By My Side” from Godspell, a song that doesn’t explicitly refer to the events leading up to the crucifixion but nevertheless is all about them (“Where are you going? Can you take me with you?”), I started crying. Maybe it’s because this recording includes the spoken words in the middle of the song, which the original cast recording doesn’t: Matthew 26:14-16, the description of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. Because they weren’t in the other recording, I wasn’t expecting them here—they caught me off guard. (Also, “By My Side” has extra resonance for me because I always think of it in connection to Lucy and Susan walking with Aslan on his way to the Stone Table in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)
Anyway, Incarnation and symbolism—hurrah. Of course, Godspell isn’t always done well. If the director and the performers don’t get the basic concept of “fools for Christ,” they shoot for “cutesy” instead. Blech. I saw one of those performances once. From what I’ve heard about the 1973 movie, it sounds like it kind of misses the boat as well. I watched the old movie trailer on Netflix.com, and the disciples look high as kites. But I can’t imagine that the symbolic elements of Godspell would transfer well to film, anyway. I love movies, but there are some things that live theater just does much better.
During my recent Godspell fixation, I learned some fascinating trivia from Wikipedia: the show began as a Master’s thesis for a Carnegie Mellon grad student. Who would’ve thunk? The story about his inspiration for Godspell is definitely worth checking out:
“Tebelak originally produced Godspell at age 22 as his masters thesis project, under the tutelage of Lawrence Carra, at Carnegie Mellon University in December 1970. He had been studying Greek and Roman mythology, with the deadline for his thesis two weeks away, but became fascinated by the joy he found in the Gospels. He attended an Easter Vigil service in 1970 at Pittsburgh’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, wearing his usual overalls and T-shirt. A policeman frisked him for drugs after the service. He wrote of this experience, ‘I left with the feeling that, rather than rolling the rock away from the Tomb, they were piling more on. I went home, took out my manuscript, and worked it to completion in a non-stop frenzy.’ Though he never completed his coursework at the university, Carnegie Mellon nevertheless awarded him a degree.”
Wow. Pretty impressive.
5 comments November 20th, 2006