Having My "Jerry Springer" Moment

There’s a difference between liking a show and admiring one. Two days have passed since I saw Jerry Springer: The Opera, the sacrilegious, potty-mouthed musical that had a two-night run at Carnegie Hall this past week, and I still can’t decide if I liked it. But I certainly do respect its audacity.

British comedians Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee based their musical on the trashy American TV talk show on which people in dysfunctional relationships shamelessly reveal personal secrets that range from infidelity and incest to racism and homophobia and then frequently end up trading blows with one another. Thomas and Lee placed their second act in Hell where Springer referees a debate between a diaper-clad Jesus and a nattily suited Satan, with a much put upon God making a cameo appearance. The situations are irreverent, the music is operatic; the lyrics are profane enough to make a gangsta rapper blush. (Click here to read an interview with Thomas and Lee about the show’s derivation).

Jerry Springer was a critical and commercial hit in London, moving from a five-month run at the National Theatre in 2003 to the West End, where it played for another 15 months (click here to see one of the dozens of YouTube clips from that production). But a national tour through the rest of Britain set off protests from Christian groups at almost every stop, a BBC broadcast drew some 50,000 complaints, and a Broadway transfer was cancelled when financial backers got cold feet. The show finally made its U.S. debut last summer at Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, a non-equity company known for its gay-themed shows.

So when I saw that the infamous show was being done for two nights at Carnegie Hall, I knew that I had to see it. There was nearly as much to see outside the concert hall as there was on the stage inside at the second night performance my always-up-for-anything buddy Bill and I attended. Despite the cold, people milled around on the sidewalk, clearly pleased with themselves for being there and eager to see who else had come. A small band of religious protesters from the Catholic group The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property stood to one side, carrying picket signs and, from time to time, tentatively singing hymns. But people mostly ignored them and kept schmoozing.

Even inside, it took a while for the SRO audience to settle down and the show started about 15 minutes late. Tough-guy actor Harvey Keitel seemed miscast in the non-singing role of Springer. But David Bedella, the one holdover from the original British cast, gave a high-voltage performance in the dual roles of Satan and the tabloid show’s Warm-up Man. The rest of the cast, all Broadway veterans, all eager and able to show off their operatic chops and, each wittily costumed by Ilona Somogyi, was equally terrific as the show’s unhappy guests.

It seemed deliciously transgressive to be watching so naughty a show in such a decorous setting as Carnegie Hall, although I do wish the acoustics had been better because I had trouble hearing all of the lyrics. I also wish that director Jason Moore, who also helmed Avenue Q, another cheeky TV to stage transfer, had drawn out more of the poignancy that is evident in some of the YouTube clips from the London production. Still, I laughed and I gasped and I wasn’t bored. But I still don’t know if I liked the show. Shock and awe can be dazzling and barrier breaking but sometimes, it is no more consequential than a sky full of fireworks.