During the intermission of Godspell, when the actor-clown-disciples served fruit juice and mingled with the audience, actor Jeffrey Mylett put it well: "It's like we're in a time warp." Mylett, still wearing a Meher Baba pin and still devoted to the late Indian mystic, had joined five other original cast members from the first New York production of Godspell for a tenth anniversary benefit performance. John-Michael Tebelak, who wrote the musical for his master's thesis at Carnegie Mellon University was "redirecting" his six former college friends plus four others who had joined the show soon afterward as Godspell moved to Broadway during 1971.
By the end of that year the show had traveled to the Mark Taper Forum in the Los Angeles Music Center. So the recent performances at First Christian Church(Disciples of Christ) of North Hollywood more precisely marked ten years ago that the widely acclaimed production came to Los Angeles,. But there was really a different reason for the anniversary location.
The idea for the church benefit show came from Gilmer McCormick, one of the original cast, and Jeanne Lange, who had joined the troupe six weeks later. Both are members of the church, which is located just down the street from one of CBS-TV's studios and not far from several movie studios. Acting as co-producers, they had not trouble getting their husbands to participate--McCormick securing Stephen Reinhardt, the original musical director for Godspell, and Lange signing up David Haskell, who repeated his roles of John the Baptist and Judas from the first show and from the movie version. "This show put a lot of love out in the world and we want to keep it alive," Lange said.
The marriages that resulted from Godspell productions include that of original actress Peggy Gordon-Landress and musician George Landress, who played lead guitar in the performances in the 300-seat theater. Peggy sang again her own intricate composition, "by My Side," virtually the only song from Tebelak's work which was not reworked by Stephen Schwartz ten years ago in New York. The most popular song, "Day by Day," used lyrics from an old English hymn, as did a number of the Godspell songs.
The dialogue similarly relies greatly on the gospel of Matthew(though the parable of the Good Samaritan and the woman caught in adultery are among the stories taken from other gospels).
For any of those who didn't catch the performances of Godspell at the White House or the Vatican, or the one by a pioneering racially mixed cast before a racially mixed audience in Johannesburg, South Africa, or one of the 15 productions running simultaneously around the world in the 1973-74 period, the musical depicts a teaching Jesus dressed in Superman shirt and suspenders, who is in the end crucified on a wire fence and carried off by his troupe of clown followers who chant "Long Live God."
Recounting some of the same things he said in interviews ten years ago, the bearded Tebelak, now drama department head for St. John the Divine(Episcopal) Seminary in New York, said that a gloomy Easter sunrise service prompted his conceiving a musical to bring out the "joy and humanity of Jesus" in the parables rather than simply the agonizing Passion story. He chose the title Godspell to suggest the mesmerizing effect of this God-man of Christian faith; only a year later did he learn that the word was also the archaic English spelling for "gospel."
Tebleak said he has directed from 30-40 productions of Godspell, but each time he has had to "rethink" the show. the performers are now in their early 30s instead of their early 20s, a serious matter for the frolicking romp this play is--a contrast in many ways to that other success of a decade ago, Jesus Christ Superstar.
The original Godspell script allowed for plenty of contemporary parodies and asides. There was an imitation of Richard Nixon and expressions of anit-Vietnam war sentiment. This updated performance included parodies of the principals on "Fantasy Island," an allusion to presidential adviser Richard V. Allen's acceptance of Japanese gifts, and a nod to a current film in the scene where the father tells is Prodigal Son, "When you call me 'Daddy Dearest,' I want you to mean it!"
The comedy routines and renditions were very well done. I don't remember laughing and marveling that much ten years ago at the Mark Taper Forum. Stephen Nathan, the original Godspell Jesus, held one's quiet attentions when the turn of events and the dialogue called for it. Haskell's Judas is still a good foil for Nathan's Jesus. Kudos also must go to Herb Braha, the only other "original" not mentioned above, and to other "latecomers" to the 1971 show--endearing Patti Mariano, sexy Marley Sims and handsome, good-voiced Bob Garrett. There was no one in the cast who didn't display confidence, delight and maybe just a little huffing and puffing.
John Dart