| The New
Group’s "Jerry Springer – The Opera"
"Jerry Springer - The Opera"
Playing now - March 11, 2018
Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd St., NYC
Tuesdays - Fridays at 7:30 pm; Saturdays at 2:00pm and 8:00 pm; Sundays
at 2:00 pm
Tickets: (212) 279-4200; www.thenewgroup.org
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| Cast
members of "Jerry Springer - The Opera." Photo courtesy
of The New Group. |
My exposure to the Jerry Springer Show
has been limited to an occasional YouTube clip, but I’ve seen
enough to know that the following topics are representative: "My
mom used to be my dad – snip, snip" and "I was jilted
by a lesbian…dwarf…yum yum" and "I used to be
a lap-dancing pre-operative transsexual."
One thing to know about The New Group's "Jerry Springer –
The Opera," running through March 11 at the The Pershing Square
Signature Center on West 42nd Street, is that those are lyrics from
the opening number, sung by a dozen faux audience members –
and cleaned up for inclusion here!
Another thing to know is that the show really is operatic in form…mostly
sung, with limited spoken dialogue. It is hardly austere or Grand
in subject matter, but it is close in style to what you find some
sixty blocks uptown. Even more so, really, than some mainstream sung-throughs.
("Les Mis" comes to mind.) That is, much of the acting is
self-conscious, as in so much 'real' opera. The difference is that
here it is intentional. Half parody, half homage and wholly outrageous
in topic and language, it is also devilishly funny. (In fairness to
Mr. Gelb's uptown venue, much of Grand Opera has toned down the histrionics,
but still…) With music,lyrics and book by Richard Thomas (not
that one) and additional book/lyric input by Stewart Lee, the off-Broadway
premiere of the "gleefully profane" musical arrives fifteen
years after its multi-award-winning run in London.
The first act is a series of interviews with guests representative
of the common denominator know as lowest. (Me in disbelief: Could
the telecasts be this sleazy? My friend: Oh yes; that’s the
appeal.) "I hope there'll be some fighting," half of the
planted audience sings. "Course there'll be some fighting, you
stupid a……," the other half responds. And then the
first guest-with-a-guilty-secret is introduced: Dwight, who is is
engaged to Peaches but has been seeing her best friend Zandra. Both
women, hardly runway-model types, confront Dwight and there is, indeed,
fighting. And coarse language, which, while I could print it here,
I'll just refer to by its initials: A to Z. (Somehow, the extreme
vulgarity comes off funny, like "The Book of Mormon"'s irreligious
content – of which there's a ton of here as well.)
Next up is Diaper Man, who jazz scats "Doo…doo…doo…doo…"
(I know, right?) Then there's Shawntel, who wants to be a pole dancer,
then Shawntel's disapproving mother and a violent (and vile) Ku Klux
Klan chorus. Then someone gets shot. Then there's intermission.
Act two has Jerry facing off with Satan in Purgatory in an effort
to avoid eternal damnation. ("I can't be in Purgatory,"
Jerry says. "I'm Jewish.") The 'plot' of this half gets
convoluted, but the gist is that Satan wants an apology for having
been expelled from Heaven and to reconcile with God. "I don't
do…conflict resolution," Jerry tells him, before agreeing
to host a mock Springer show featuring the antagonists, during which
the surprise guests include Jesus of Nazareth, Adam and Eve, the "teenage
mother of Jesus, Mary," and, finally, God himself, who is greeted
with "Thank God you're here!"
Among the large cast, Terrence Mann and Will Swenson do some heavy
lifting as Jerry and Satan, both with as many spoken as sung passages.
Mann, in fact, plays it relatively straight as Jerry, which effectively
contrasts with the outrageous "guests." Most others in the
cast do double or triple duty: Tiffany Mann (no apparent relation
to Terrence, but who knows) is the gospel-voiced pole dancer and also,
later, Eve (of the apple). Luke Grooms is woebegone Dwight and an
imposing God. Justin Keyes is the unlikely duo of Diaper Man and Jesus,
while Jill Paice sashays throughout as saucy Baby Jane.
As deceptively rough-hewn as John Rando's direction and Chris Bailey's
choreography may appear, there’s underlying discipline to both
elements, as well as to the orchestrations (Greg Anthony Rassen) and
the legit-voice solos and choral work under the music direction of
Michael Brennan.Certainly "Jerry Springer – The Opera"
is not for everyone's taste, and while it might seem over-loaded,
the fast-paced show runs just two hours, plus intermission. In the
opening song (see top), the audience is advised not to throw things
or throw up and "most of all…seriously…have yourselves
a good time." I did not throw things or up, but, seriously, I
did have a good time.
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