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by
David Benedict
Ever since Richard Eyre fulfilled Laurence Olivier's dream
by staging Guys and Dolls at the National Theatre in 1982,
the venue has been bolstering its finances with splashy revivals
of musicals.
Vast casts, orchestras and design demands mean that they're
terrifyingly expensive to produce, but success spells box
office. Audiences in the past two years booked on the basis
of the titles alone for South Pacific and My Fair Lady. But
the gulf between remounting a well-loved classic and staging
something new is a mile wide. Which is why incoming artistic
director Nicholas Hytner's announcement that his reign will
kick off in April with Jerry Springer: The Opera is bold and
exciting.
Most
"new" musicals these days are either back-catalogue
shows or pointless retreads of old movies like the technologically
impressive, but dramatically lifeless, Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang. Although Jerry Springer - The Opera clearly derives
from a TV source, it is far more than a carbon-copy with added
songs.
It sprang to life at Battersea Arts Centre in February 2001.
Gleeful word-of-mouth for this short, sharp shock of a show
spread like wildfire and its creator/composer Richard Thomas
began refashioning his seemingly mad, hour-long satirical
extravaganza into a full-length production. It grabbed the
headlines at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, commercial producers
were panting for it and Springer himself flew in to see it.
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By this time, Thomas had been joined by co-writer/director
Stewart Lee (one half of comedy duo Lee and Herring). The
imminent arrival of Springer induced more than a little panic.
After all, their show sees Springer presiding over a blackly
comic rewrite of a typically rabble-rousing, warts 'n' all
episode, with a voracious chorus of keyed-up audience members,
a hymn to pole-dancing, a desperate guest stripping down to
nappies and a tap-dancing line of Ku Klux Klansmen and ends
the first half by having Jerry killed live on air.
In the second half, things get even hotter as Jerry arrives
at Judgment Day and faces a battle between heaven and hell.
The real-life Springer, despite his reputation as a sleaze-fest
schlock-jock, must be smart: he saw the funny side and granted
his permission. He probably welcomed the opportunity to be
associated with so singular a show.
Critics were already raving. "Forget your furs, your
picnic baskets and your corporate hospitality. This is opera
in the raw." cried the Independent on Sunday. "Liberatingly
irreverent," declared The Observer, "It would be
hard to find a movie to match this for invention and imagination."
The first tip-off of its theatrical savvy is the smart title.
Jerry Springer... an opera? The very incongruity is intriguing.
However, within seconds of the musical starting, you realise
that high-voltage singing is the best way to dramatise a Springer
chat show, with its sordid - usually sexual - confessions
by members of the public.
The problem for all musicals is to make it seem natural that
characters burst into song, but here, from the opening chorus
of "Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry..." which sounds increasingly
like a comic version of "Kyrie" from a sung Mass,
that thought simply never occurs.
As on the TV show, Jerry remains the still centre amid the
mayhem - he is the only character who doesn't sing. Everyone
else lets rip with a wild pick 'n' mix: everything from Bach
to Bacharach via rock and gospel, epitomised by the solo This
is My Jerry Springer Moment (So dip me in chocolate and throw
me to the lesbians/ I don't want this moment to die).
Most musicals placate their audience, offering variations
on what it already knows, but this is all the more entertaining
because you never know what's coming next. That might sound
ramshackle, but Thomas holds all the diverse elements together
because he has hit upon the perfect form for his idea. Couple
that with his and Lee's experience as live comedy performers
and it's no wonder the show has taken off.
The BAC performances were stages in a workshop development
process and the Edinburgh run was really a souped-up concert
staging. The show, particularly the fitful second half, still
needs work. Thanks to the subsidised National Theatre resources
and the arrival of Julian Crouch, the co-designer/director
of the similarly genre-busting one-off Shockheaded Peter,
that will now happen.
Casting has yet to be announced but, for once, the star of
the show is the material. What better vindication of Hytner's
new dawn than a nurturing of such a dangerous and delicious
bad-taste bonanze? |
