The Gospel at Colonus

The Gospel at Colonus
Music Bob Telson
Lyrics Lee Breuer
Book Lee Breuer
Basis Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
Productions 1983 Brooklyn Academy of Music
1985 American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia
1987 Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis
1988 Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Broadway
1990 American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco
2004 Apollo Theater
2010 Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, St. Paul
2015 Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles
2015 Playhouse on the Square, Memphis
Awards Pulitzer Prize finalist, 1985

The Gospel at Colonus is an African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. The show was created in 1983 by the experimental-theatre director Lee Breuer, one of the founders of the seminal American avant-garde theatre company Mabou Mines, and composer Bob Telson. The musical was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show had a brief run on Broadway in 1988.

Productions

The Gospel at Colonus premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's New Wave Festival in November to December 1983.[1] The musical ran at the American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia, in September 1985.[2][3]

The Gospel at Colonus opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on March 11, 1988 in previews, officially on March 14, 1988, and closed on May 15, 1988 after 61 performances and 15 previews. Directed by Lee Breuer, the cast featured Morgan Freeman (Messenger), Sam Butler, Jr. (The Singer), Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama (Oedipus) and the Institutional Radio Choir of Brooklyn. Breuer was nominated for the 1988 Tony Award for his book. [4]

The musical was a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.[5] The musical won the 1984 Obie Award as Best Musical.[6]

The musical was produced at the Apollo Theater, New York City, in October 2004, featuring Charles S. Dutton as the Preacher, the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Legendary Soul Stirrers.[7]

The production at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles, by the Ebony Repertory Theatre was nominated for the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for theatrical excellence.[8][9]

Overview

Breuer and Telson handed the storytelling duties to a black Pentecostal preacher and the choir of his church, who in turn enacted the story of Oedipus's torment and redemption as a modern parable. They employed the unusual device of casting The Blind Boys of Alabama to collectively portray Oedipus as well as the Institutional Radio Choir in Brooklyn and Chancel Choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Other casting innovations in the performance include multiple actors in single roles, such as when The Messenger is called upon to assume the role of Oedipus in tandem with the singer cast when the role calls for stage motion that would be difficult for the blind singer to negotiate alone, the multiplicity of Oedipus's daughters and one son when the children of Oedipus appear collectively (with Jevetta Steele as Ismene, her sister Jearlyn Steele doubling for actress Isabell O'Connor as Antigone, and brothers J.D. and Fred Steele standing in as Polynices and Eteocles, with actor Kevin Davis doubling as Polynices), and, indeed, with different portions of the cast, singly and in groups, assuming the duties of the traditional Greek chorus.

Some people have expressed the view that the result was the translation of the Greek myth into a Christian parable. Mel Gussow, in his review of the BAM production in The New York Times, noted: "It is surprising how organically "Oedipus" can fit within the framework of a gospel musical... the evening has the shape of a church service."[1]Others observed that the name Jesus is not mentioned and is irrelevant to the story.

While the traditions of Greek theater as religious ritual are unfamiliar to modern audiences, Gospel at Colonus reaffirms those possibilities by its use of call-and-response and ecstatic, sung re-enactment of a culturally important story.

Television and film

In 1985 PBS televised the original Brooklyn Academy of Music production, as presented by the American Music Theater Festival at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, as part of the Great Performances series. The performers included Morgan Freeman as The Messenger, Carl Lumbly as Theseus, Jevetta Steele as Ismene, and Robert Earl Jones as Creon. In the 1985 incarnation, The Soul Stirrers (credited collectively) and the Institutional Radio Choir assume roles as citizens of Colonus.[2]

The first-act song "How Shall I See You Through My Tears?" was used as the opening number of the 2003 film, Camp.

Musical numbers

References

  1. 1 2 Gussow, Mel. The Gospel at Colonus, The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century: 1900-1929, Taylor & Francis, 2002, ISBN 1579582907, pp. 2785-2786
  2. 1 2 O'Conner, John J. "'The Gospel at Colonus' on Great Performances" The New York Times, November 8, 1985
  3. ↑ Klein, Joe. "Sounds", "Raging Glory" New York Magazine, February 27, 1984, p. 76
  4. ↑ "The Gospel at Colonus Broadway" Playbill (vault), accessed March 20, 2016
  5. ↑ "Pulitzer Prize, Drama" pulitzer.org, accessed March 20, 2016
  6. ↑ "Obie Awards, 1984" obieawards.com, accessed March 20, 2016
  7. ↑ Gates, Anita. "Lost in the Joyful Noise of Sophocles" The New York Times, October 30, 2004
  8. ↑ Gans, Andrew. "Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Nominations Announced; Deaf West Theatre Will Be Honored" Playbill, January 29, 2016
  9. ↑ Nichols, David C. "'The Gospel at Colonus' proves timely, timeless" Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2015


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