Michelle Hoffman | Special for The Republic | September 15, 2006
FOUNTAIN HILLS – It’s a tragedy that Fountain Hills Community Theater had to open its 20th season on football’s big kickoff weekend. Only half the seats were filled for Saturday night’s fantastic staging of Godspell, set to run through Oct. 1. It’s performances like these that keep theater critics from shaking their fists in the air for having to review ’70s musicals that tend to get a bit long in the tooth.
It’s also performances like these that give the public a chance to see a landmark production whose big touring days are long over. It won’t be coming to Gammage anytime soon. Decades before tunesmith Stephen Schwartz penned the score to this season’s box office juggernaut, Wicked, he composed Godspell.
Godspell debuted off-Broadway in the spring of 1971 when the flower-child momentum surged into theatrical circles with rock musicals like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, which both created pages of press-gobbling drama. Nothing drums up publicity better than cries of blasphemy. Just ask Madonna.
But while Superstar was flamboyant, Godspell had an upbeat, feel-good quality. And although it wasn’t a panacea to America’s ailments at the time (Vietnam, bra incineration, OPEC crisis), Godspell gave the parables a refreshingly modern scope at the onset of the Me Decade.
The plot is based on the Gospel of St. Matthew where each parable is fashioned into a separate skit like the tale of Lazarus told Masterpiece Theater-style, or when the actors simulate a slide show (complete with an inverted slide) or the soft shoe routine with Jesus and John the Baptist. Each segment hums rhythmically along one after another, which makes for some swift pacing.
Godspell was Fountain Hills Community Theater’s maiden production 20 years ago. But director Peter Hill didn’t just dust the script off and trot it back out there. This performance is sprinkled with contemporary references to juice boxes, iPods, Jessica Simpson and lines like, “The devil really does wear Prada.”
The most overt aspect of the evening was the solid collaboration among the 10 cast members that culminated in a gestalt-like performance.
Jesse Berger is great as Jesus and manages not to upstage the others. Each cast member had his/her place in the spotlight without a disappointment in the bunch.
Janine Smith sang the musical’s most famous tune, Day By Day, in a way Schwartz must have intended. It was lovely. The rest of the cast joined her and they fanned out into the theater surrounding the audience with the song.
Local cast members include Kellen Hunt (Cave Creek), Ryan Jordan (Fountain Hills), Matt McDonald and Smith (Scottsdale).
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