Theater Review—

Good News For Fans Of Ridgefield Theater Barn’s Polished Productions

By Julie Stern

RIDGEFIELD — 1971 was the year of the New Testament rock musical, the most famous being the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacular, Jesus Christ Superstar.

But 1971 was also the year when a 23-year-old graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University Drama School was given the chance to write new music for a show conceived by a classmate of his. Stephen Schwartz seized his opportunity, and the off-Broadway hit Godspell was born.

The original idea, conceived by John-Michael Tebelak on the Carnegie campus,  was to set psalms and parables to rock music, performed by a group of clown-actors. (The word Godspell means “Good News” and the message of the play was meant to be joyful and spontaneous.)

Saying that the show “had to musicalized in a way that was more accessible or emotional, and had more variety,” Schwartz,  whose body of work would eventually include such shows as Pippin, The Children of Eden and Wicked, came up with two acts worth of songs that are melodic, energetic, and moving by turns.

The form of the show is skeletal: a the troupe of performers act out the parables and messages contained in the Book of Matthew, allowing broad choices as to setting, costumes, and general interpretation.

At Ridgefield Theater Barn, where the show is in production until mid-December, director Rick Hodder has chosen to set the play in a run-down city slum, where “St. Matthew’s Mission” operates a shelter.

Jesus climbs out of a wooden crate to preach His message to an assortment of neighborhood denizens: a computer geek,  a chef, a fitness instructor, a hooker, a homeless vet, and so on. By way of baptism, he presents each one with a distinctive accessory —  epaulets, dog tags, a boa scarf, angel wings, a clown nose… — and then proceeds to deliver the parables that are so well known today, from the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son to Lazarus and Gyges and the Sermon on the Mount to The Last Supper, the Judas kiss and the dark night of Gethsemane.

Craig David Rosen (the cowboy hated fitness instructor) doubles as producer-choreographer and he has created some lively and exciting ways for the cast to act these stories out. The energy and spirit of the company is contagious, and helped by some beautiful voices.

Mop-headed Jimmy Bain, as Jesus, is very young, compared to the other performers, which makes his characterization vulnerable, even as he is sure of what he is saying. As the Lutheran minister, Reverend Ingquist said on “The Prairie Home Companion,” the Christian God is not a superhero.  In this rendition of Godspell, the disciples are enthusiastic, but unreliable. But then they are only human, and that is what the Bible is all about.

Lisa Murray is delightful as the frenetically spirited computer geek. Jessica Vanacoro combines a beautiful voice with a radiant smile. Denise Milmerstadt is properly vampy as the come-hither girl, and Wayne Leiss  is dutifully comical as the chef. The cast is rounded out by Catherine and Jessica Crocetto, Tara Leighton, and Tony Saracino.

The show is long, running about two and a half hours with intermission. It is enjoyable and, like everything else at Theater Barn, well rehearsed and professionally finished. I wouldn’t bring young kids, but on the other hand, if they’ve been through Sunday school, they should know the story.