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z unleashed
(zoë martlew) the englishman sits in his caravan at St Osyth/singing (Arlette Kim George/Paul Whitty Collaboration) No capital letters at BAC (Battersea Arts Centre)! Jerry Springer - the Opera (of which more anon) began with a "scratch" production at BAC, so it was opportune to be able to sample the current opera 2003 season there this month. We hit an excellent evening of work in progress. The atmosphere
was friendly and convivial and the teams were in attendance afterwards
to welcome audience reactions. zoë martlew is a highly
successful cellist, often seen on the contemporary music The problem with this short of show is finding how and when to stop; she often seemed about to do so, then we were into another act. Cut by about ten minutes it should be a great show, assured of welcoming receptions, perhaps in a late night Huddersfield Festival spot, where the audience would respond quicker to the 'contemporary music' jokes than did those at BAC. Zoë Martlew's show needs a little pruning; paul whitty composer It was a privilege to be invited to report on scratch, a far more rewarding evening than the double bill of Milhaud and Stravinsky put on at BAC Opera by The New Professionals the previous week. So what about Jerry Springer - The
Opera at the National Theatre? Seeing this hot-ticketed, sold out triumphant opening of Nicholas Hytner's reign at the National Theatre with a matinee audience we found ourselves remote from the cheering audience, or were we two the only soldiers 'in step'? My neighbour was enjoying it, but at the interval characterised it well as being 'funny but not witty'. Feeling at first out of place, and unqualified to review it by
not having been devotees of the Jerry Springer TV Show, I am emboldened
by seeing Arnold Wesker's demolition from a theatrical and moral
stance, 'Theatre of the trashiest kind' (Telegraph, 13/05/2003). That is BAC opera's runaway success, currently sold out at the National Theatre (only with great difficulty did we achieve a single press ticket, entitling us to comment). We looked forward keenly to Jerry Springer - The Opera , having read all the rave reviews, and I thought it would interest The Opera Critic, but we felt so alienated from the surrounding audience that I was inclined not to review it at all, until I came across Arnold Wesker's diatribe, with which we were in complete sympathy. The staging had flair, and the singing (heavily amplified) is good. The score for the band seemed to be run-of-the-mill musical fare, not warranting at all comparisons with Sondheim that had been proferred to the latter's disadvantage. Most disappointing was its musical poverty; nothing to remember or whistle afterwards there. We were not shocked by the banality of the incessant swearing (sung, you understand) nor by the glorification of ugliness in the representation of Springer's 'guests' on the show. The second half, down in Hell, was marginally less awful, but this was a poor afternoon in the theatre. Although purporting to be a satire, it still colludes into turning us into admiring voyeurs of TV hero adulation at its worst. May I leave the last word with Arnold Wesker? Peter Grahame Woolf
"The critics have gone wild about it. The sexual deviations paraded seem to have inspired them to wet their knickers with the excitement of it all. I saw a preview and predicted they would. It exuded a quality of lewdness that titillates old men, certain kinds of intellectuals, closeted upper-class and, inevitably, the adolescent in search of outrage. "A musical truly for our time. The West End needs Springer", "Utterly brilliant and hilarious", "A must-see event", "If you go to one event this year, make it this one." And so on. The live Jerry Springer Show invites, specimen-like, the ugly, the deranged, the illiterate to flaunt infidelity or any sexual deviation that distresses their partners. Springer confesses that he brings them together not "to solve problems" but "just to televise them". Sometimes the anger of the "distressed ones" erupts so violently that bouncers, laid on for the eventuality, have physically to keep them apart - though we wonder how much of the outburst is spontaneous, how much planned backstage. The air of fraudulence and dishonesty pervades the show as Springer stands there with half a contemptuous smile on his face and a card bearing his I-AM name in his hand in case the appearance of his name before and after and during the show as well as in advertising is forgotten. There is something pathetically insecure and childlike in the holding up of that card. Look look look! Me me me! Please don't forget the name! It's a show that invites its sad guests to make a public spectacle of their pain, confusion, crassness and vulgarity, and encourages a studio audience to comment and display vulgarity and crassness of its own. Jerry Springer - The Opera celebrates the crassness, adding the vulgarity that the TV, for public decency, bleeps out. Three Israelis sat at my left. One was a producer of animated documentaries; the other two were mother and son. At the end of the first act we instinctively turned to each other with looks of incomprehension and disbelief. We were depressed both by the spectacle and the excessive mob-like enthusiasm of the audience. - - It's not the poor black actor looking absurd in shit-filled diapers that offends, or the fat lady having no greater ambition than to pole-dance which so obviously is beyond her size and weight; it's that in both the live Springer show and this celebration of it we are invited not to understand but either to laugh at them - which insults them - or, because they are all rather intimidatingly jolly about their offbeat desires, to laugh with them - which is patronising! - - The show is described variously as "lewd", "rude" and "outrageous", but the consensus is that trash has been turned into something "musically sophisticated". But not intellectually sophisticated? Of course not! Trash is trash and eternally depressing. - - The show - - is a success because of Richard Thomas's rich orchestrations (despite there not being a melody to remember), its fine singers, a clever set, and its energetic direction by Stewart Lee. I need more, however. - - This show, I fear, introduces a new dimension: audiences will feel intimidated to be caught not liking it. Arnold Wesker's full report is on line at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2003%2F05%2F13%2Fbtjerry13.xml Zoë Martlew can be heard in recital with Huw Watkins at the Warehouse on July 11. (Unfortunately I have not yet located a picture of her, which would be more attractive than my illustrations above!) BAC OPERA 2003 returns to Battersea Arts Centre in September http://www.bac.org.uk
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BAC
Opera Scratch Night 30
May and Jerry
Springer - the Opera at
the National Theatre 10 May
circuit.
She obviously feels constrained within an orchestra and has seized
an opportunity to break out. Her show is quite elaborate, a sort
of one-woman cabaret interposed with often frantic playing on the
cello; good decor and costuming, supported by singer Paul Thomas,
whose role remained obscure. Zoë Martlew proves herself an
accomplished actress, assuming various characterisations, some of
them hilarious, and delivering text with aplomb. She has some way
to come vocally as a smoochy night-club type singer. 
the
englishman sits in his caravan etc probably needs
expanding, and more development. Only a little singing, and fragmented
words not always easy to follow, but with repetition they accumulate
to make poetic sense, linking more recent events with witchcraft
in Essex long ago. Stylised presentation, still at the stage of
needing the book; this will become something truly original. 
It
is slick and insistent and by dint of repetition ensures that if
you had never seen the Jerry Springer Show you will remember him
and his name for ever. It purports to satirise him but more likely
reinforces the voyeuristic tendencies the show itself exploits.
The first half we found boring, but it does liven up once he is
down in Hell.