Tuesday, July 30, 2013

WTC Presents Godspell




Worthington Community Theaters Godspell is a delightful homage to the film with a slight Toy Box twist!
I was privileged enough to see this fun energetic show this past Saturday night I was pleased with the majority of the show!  Composed of various musical parables from The Gospel According to Matthew. Jesus Christ recruits a group of followers and teaches them various lessons through song and dance. Toward the end of the second act, the show begins to follow a more linear narrative as Jesus is betrayed by Judas and eventually crucified (http://www.broadway.com/shows/godspell/story/)
The show opens with a delightful chorus of Crayons singing us the ideals of many different philosophers including Socrates, this rag tag group of colorful wax figures are led by Taylor Waldron,         Robbie Markus, Alec Brown, Halle Kaler Roberts, Megan Gehrlich, Kyle Marler, Dale Giffey, Sierra Getz and Kyle Marler. The Crayons have a nice energy and balance to their voices but can on occasion overstep each other in larger group numbers pulling focus from the main cast. 
The remainder of the cast making up Jesus’s disciples featuring JESUS, Garrett Parsons JUDAS/JOHN THE BAPTIST Brad Johnson, ANNA MARIA Ashley Robbe, CELISSE Annie Kalinoski, LINDSAY Eli Brickey, TELLY Nicholas van Atta, GEORGE Eric King, MORGAN Hannah Berry, UZO Carole Luley and NICK Greg Zunkiewicz. They are portrayed as Toys recognized from everyone’s childhood including a Princess, a Cowboy and Raggedy Anne. Our John the Baptist/Judas Played by Brad Johnson makes his entrance from inside a Jack in the box as he sings Prepare Ye he passes over the “Toys” with a bucket for the Baptism as he passes the Toys come alive. I would have liked to see the baptism be the symbol of the life giving, Instead of just walking by them.  
I found the entrance of Jesus Garrett Parsons interesting a barefoot G.I. Joe getting washed up I feel his feet should not have been clean just a bit dirtied would have helped me.
The voices in this production were a bit miscast. Some of the Crayons had the vocal range and volume to push the individual solo pieces a bit more. Along with vocals I have to point out the Elephant in the theater the stage microphones constantly fed back and picked up no vocals.  This unfortunately made certain iconic moments and songs hard to register, including all for the Best that featured a wonderful dance Duet between Brad Johnson John the Baptist/Judas and                 Garrett Parsons Jesus.
At times the Toy Cast seemed to slide out of character and into a slumped waiting for my next line to come back to life position. I would have preferred to see the cast stay in these heightened states the whole time, but on the opposite spectrum there was an awkward moment after the crucifixion of one of the women toys openly weeping, now this could be taken as a literal representation of Mary weeping at the cross but the real impact would have come in silent tears and not sucking in the post nasal drip louder than the vocals on stage.
Overall the direction of this show was nice, pulling members of the audience into the action by playing games (Charades, Pictionary) including a dear friend and fellow actor Geno Smith.

All in all despite some flaws this is a wonderful piece of Broadway here in the Greater Columbus Area. Check out http://www.wctpresents.org/ for ticket information and don’t miss your opportunity to see Godspell August 2, 3 – 7:30 p.m. August 4 2:00 p.m.

1 comment:

  1. I agree that this is a talented, capable cast. The concept of casting characters as famous toy characters and crayons was cute and clever. We left at intermission -- mostly due to the feedback problems which were giving me a headache.
    I think the choices for audience participation were very poorly executed.
    In general, the pacing was much too slow.

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