Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry.
Yes. At last I have cast my beady eye over and turned my shell-like ear to Jerry Springer The Opera. I didn't know very much about it before I went other than the big fuss it had caused among Christian groups (on which more later, if I remember).
So, the first half was taken up with an operatic song and dance version of Jerry Springer's television show, in which various unsavoury characters argued while Jerry looked ruefully on. One of them was a man that wanted to be a baby, there was a fat woman that wanted to be a stripper, and so-on. It was fine, and it had it's moments (Steve the security chap was hilarious), but I frankly thought that the actual television show was more compelling viewing and I was beginning to get fed up with it all, when suddenly there was a tap-dancing KKK clan leaping about and doing the business, which was such a brilliant spectacle of surreal inventiveness that I suddenly forgave the faults of the rather anodyne rest of the first half. Then Jerry was shot and we went into his head for the second half, where he was in Hell trying to sort out all the arguments between God and the Devil and Jesus. This, the second half, was much better than the first - the surreal element that was largely absent from the first half made the whole thing come properly alive and brought the best out of the performers, who were, incidentally, all brilliant.
It was very enjoyable, surreal, joyous, uplifting fun. As for the fuss it has caused amongst Christians, I am not so very sure whether they have a point or not - there were some of them outside the theatre very politely handing out leaflets that were filled with rather disappointingly poorly informed and worryingly fanatical statements (and they'd seemed so nice). Apparently because of us all of York will be destroyed by God, who they seem to think rather an indiscriminate, vengeful fellow. I don't think that the opera does set out to mock religion, as such (it certainly wasn't motivated by a hatred of Christianity like the Christians’ leaflet tried to suggest); it seemed more to lampoon the respect that people like Springer and programmes like his are afforded, and to mock the way that they exploit people that are practically all in some way incapable and make those people's already pretty serious problems worse. It is intended, it seems to me, as a judgement on the trivialisation of serious problems by the modern media, especially the television, not as an explicit attack on religion (whether the bit with God and the Devil is a dream sequence or not seems pretty irrelevant to me – the unnecessary panicking of people who’ve been rattled by the Christians’ ire). It is easy to see why some Christians are offended by the opera, though, because although it doesn't exactly mean to attack their religion it does certainly at least belittle it, which I suppose must be annoying. But still I can't manage to find any reaction in myself to them other than pity. It seems sad that they're offended by such a genuinely harmless piece of fiction, and it seems sad that they feel that their God would destroy them for something that they've got no control over. If they really thought that God would destroy the city because of this play, why weren't they trying to fight their way into the theatre to stop it? Religion has always baffled me, and it baffled me again last night.
Far more telling was the fact that the theatre was only about two-thirds full. Why that was is hard to fathom: it is a good piece of entertainment, and certainly worth seeing. Perhaps people were dissuaded by reports of protestors (wrong word really - they were too polite to be protesting, but I can't think what else they might adequately be described as. Polite Objectors?). I recommend it heartily, though. It's a good bit of theatre. Worth seeing. Worth every penny.
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