[NEohioPAL] Review of "Jerry Springer: The Opera" at Beck Center for the Arts

[Bob Abelman]

Like the TV show, Beck's 'Jerry Springer: The Opera' wears thin

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald 2/25/11

 

The dust has settled, the protesters and local camera crews have left, and the controversial opening night of the Beck Center for the Arts production of Jerry Springer: The Opera is a thing of the past.  So, what was all the fuss about?

 

The Jerry Springer TV show, on which Stewart Lee and Richard Thomas' mock-opera is based, is a syndicated, daytime talk show that surfaced in 1991 after the self-disclosing, self-help pioneers of the genre began to lose steam.

 

A career politician, Springer recognized that viewers had become curious and insatiable third-party voyeurs accustomed to peeking into other people's lives.  On TV, everything is everyone's business. 

 

What he did before and did better than the copycats in his wake was open wide the private sphere for public consumption.  Intimate relationships, personal problems, illicit acts and embarrassing behavior became fair game.  For the past 20 years the Jerry Springer show paraded for our amusement and amazement society's misfits, who have been remarkably eager to expose their demons and their breasts to a small studio audience and the millions at home.

 

The stage production at the Beck Center, which originated as an award-winning play in London in 2003, is the equivalent of a highlight reel of the lowlifes who have frequented Springer's show.  It places us in the studio audience and pays homage to, while simultaneously lampooning, the odd spectacle that is this program.

 

The first act takes place during a typical taping of the TV show as Springer (a spot-on Matthew Wright) interviews annoying fetishists (the daring Diana Farrell and risk-taking, diaper-wearing Darryl Lewis), an aggressive transvestite (a delightful Ryan Bergeron), a feuding foursome (including the very talented Leslie Andres and Patrick Ciamacco), and members of the Ku Klux Klan. 

 

The second act takes place in hell, where Springer's guests include Satan (a magnificent and scene-stealing Gilgamesh Taggett) and Jesus (a loin-cloth wearing Darryl Lewis).  It is this portion of the play that inspired the wrath of protesters; this and the stream of profanity and vulgarity that works its way into every musical number.

 

Of course, as an opera, everything is a musical number so the profanity and vulgarity are incessant.

 

The very concept of staging Jerry Springer as an opera is brilliant and appropriate.  The drama is epic in proportion.  The characters are larger than life.  And the juxtaposition of high art expressing guttural utterances manufactures the astonishment that is Springer's bread and butter.  Hearing the f-bomb belted by a coloratura mezzo-soprano is, quite frankly, hilarious.

 

At first.  As with the Jerry Springer show itself, the novelty of this play wears thin and then wears off.

 

While this piece of theater is bolstered by its operatic form, it is undermined by it as well.  This play grows increasingly tedious with each lengthy and redundant performance piece.  Every exercise of vocal calisthenics tests the endurance of those with no ear for or appreciation of opera.  Many of the lyrics sung in the higher register are lost.

 

Director Scott Spence peppers the 23-member cast with bona fide opera singers who generate a rich and authentic sound and he keeps this play moving at a steady pace.  



Martin Cespedes comes to the rescue when he can with creative and lively ensemble-based choreography (the Klan kick line is a disturbing delight).



The music, directed by Bryan Bird, is solid.

 

Still, this production-despite its initial shock value-frequently lapses into boredom. The humor is not sustainable and there is no aftershock.  Lost in the lunacy is the intended lampooning. 

 

With the dust settled, with the protesters gone and with the controversy faded, the play's the thing, and this play is a made-from-TV novelty that is all dressed up (and cross-dressed) with nowhere to go.   

 

Jerry Springer: The Opera runs through March 27 at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.    For tickets, which range from $17-$28, call 216-521-2540 x 10 or visit www.beckcenter.org.

 
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